There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant business, making bread all day with uncouth gesticulation; their air, gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Given this week's photograph, you might think I am about to write about a trip to the Netherlands. But, in fact, I took this photograph in February after a much shorter journey to a town called Seaburn, some fifteen miles from my home in Blaydon. As the name Seaburn suggests, it sits beside the North Sea.
To be precise, the windmill pictured is Fulwell Mill, which takes its name from Fulwell. A ward, which adjoins Seaburn, of the City of Sunderland. Fulwell sounds like a delightful place to live in that a full well is usually a good thing. However, the name is from the old English, fūl and Anglian, well. And together they mean foul stream or spring. What may have filled the stream in Anglo-Saxon times I will leave to your imagination. The windmill dates from early in the nineteenth century when Fulwell was an agricultural area rather than being part of the overspill from Sunderland's urban sprawl it is today.
The windmill is one of three in the area and has had several restorations over the past two hundred years. It is the only UK working windmill that stands on a stone reefing stage. Something unique to windmills in the northeast of England. Other windmills around the country have a gallery part of the way up the windmill, allowing access to the sails for making repairs. Interestingly, early in the 20th century saw the removal of the sails and the mill powered by a gas engine. The not-very eco-friendly change allowed the then-owners to extend the mill's economic life, producing animal feed, into the 1950s. Restoration of the mill to its original sail-driven glory as a visitor attraction happened in the 1970s.
Joseph Swann, the inventor of the incandescent lightbulb, commissioned the building of Fulwell Mill. Popular myth credits Thomas Edison with inventing the lightbulb. Yet, Joseph Swann developed a carbon filament bulb some ten years earlier. Swann successfully sued Edison over patent infringement in a British Court. Later, the authorities in the USA also stripped Edison of his US patent. But as the famous line uttered by the actor Carleton Young in the film, 'The man who shot Liberty Valance' goes - "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". And the legend has Edison as the inventor.
Those who read my piece 'New Castle' may recall the mention of John Mawson, Swan's brother-in-law and fellow partner in the Manufacturing Chemical company they ran together. It was from that company that the first incandescent light bulbs emerged. Unfortunately, Mawson fell victim to a tragedy on Newcastle's town moor in 1867 when, as the then Sheriff of Newcastle, he supervised the disposal of some nitro-glycerine by burying it. Sadly, the nitro-glycerine turned the tables and exploded, leading to the ultimate burial of John and seven others.
As you can see from the photograph, my visit was on an overcast grey on grey day. What you can't see from the photograph is the brisk north wind that dropped the temperature to near zero. Perfect weather for a visit to the northeast coast of England! But to the beach, I ventured, following a short walk from the windmill.
Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo, once described the Mediterranean as having "a colour like mackerel, in other words, changing – you don't always know if it's green or purple – you don't always know if it's blue – because a second later, its changing reflection has taken on a pink or grey hue."
Not so the North Sea on this occasion. Grey Mullet was the only fish that came to mind as I looked out over the vast expanse of water. All that greeted me was a sweeping grey-on-grey view. The heavy iron-grey of the clouds hanging low over the steel-grey of the turbulent sea that flung white-capped waves roaring to the shore and crashing them silver-grey high over Roker Pier. Above that tumult, seemingly suspended in the air, pewter-grey and white gulls glided on the wind.
I watched and marvelled at the sight as I walked along the seafront from Seaburn to the adjoining seafront of Roker, another ward of Sunderland. What came to my mind is that when William Henry Davies wrote those immortal lines, "What is this life if, full of care / We have no time to stand and stare", he did not have a February near the northeast coast of England in his mind. I had time aplenty, but the standing bit was something for another balmier day.
What also came to my mind was that I had not long booked an overnight crossing of that boisterous North Sea from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Admittedly that crossing was happening later in the year when I hoped the sea would be less rowdy and we have warmer and calmer weather.
My short excursion to the Netherlands is to look at something other than windmills. Except those Vermeer or Van Gogh may have captured in paint. However, if I see the real thing, I may share a photograph in that week's missive.
Homer called it “wine-dark sea”
So many pearls (yet again) in this week’s meandering. My “well I never” highlight was reading about Joseph Swann.