Three rides to choose from this Sunday! With it being the 1st Sunday of the month, we have a coffee stop option on the longer ride. The stop will be in Chinnor.

All rides start from the bus sheter outside Ivinghoe church, be there, or miss out!

Thanks to Richard F for providing us with route options for 10am and 10.30am

10.30am https://ridewithgps.com/routes/52870146 off to standbridge and back via Dagnall, 22 miles, fairly flat to start and then the climbing comes in towards the end of the ride

10am https://ridewithgps.com/routes/52869975 Out to Kimblewick the flat earthers will love this one.

9am coffee ride https://ridewithgps.com/routes/52886744 “Four-mill-ity” a tour of four local windmills with some early climbs and a flat second half after the cofee.

Pitstone windmill is an early 17th century windmill currently owned by the national trust. 1627 is carved on a piece of the framework, believed to be the earliest year of any windmill in the British Isles still standing. Indeed some of the wood heralds from a tree felled in 1595. The Pitstone mill is a post mill design meaning the structure is resting on a central post and the whole mill turns to bring the sails round into the wind. 

Hawridge Mill was built on the current site in 1883 at a cost of £300 by Hillstons of Tring, the design superseded an unprofitable smock mill. This is a tower mill meaning it’s strong brick construction could support bigger sails and house the sails at a greater height. The mill operated until 1912 when it was converted into a private residence. The author Ben Hatch lived in the mill during his teenage life, his nickname at Chesham school was “Windy Miller”  in his book “are we nearly there yet?” he mentions living in the mill and working in the legendary Macdonalds in Chesham. Ben’s book “road to Rouen” is also worth a read.

The Lacey Green windmill sits prettily on top of a Chiltern hill, built around 1650. For a number of years in the 20th century it had a now disproven claim from Chesham folk that it had been moved the 9 miles east from Lownes Park. In operation until 1915 the mill was then turned into a weekend cottage. After years of neglect, in recent times the mill has been restored to be a stunning example of a smock windmill, which means only the top, or cap rotates to bring the sails into the wind. The name smock was given to mills like this due to the visual likeness to the garments worn by farmers. Construction was generally sloping weatherboards.

Chinnor Windmill, another post mill, was first constructed in 1789, although it’s likely there were mills on the site for hundreds of years before this one.  It was demolished in 1967 to make way for housing but luckily most bits were kept and moved to Essex, where they were discovered in 1980 and  a group of dedicated volunteers rebuilt the mill around 150 yards from the original site in Whites Field. 

We will aim to have a coffee at the windmill at Chinnor, if this is not possible the biker bean cafe is just around the corner.