Toot Mill, Toot Hill, Essex by William Brown Macdougall (1868-1936). Oil on hessian. H 87.6 x W 99.1 cm. Collection: Nottingham City Museums & Galleries. Accession no. NCM 1937-39. Given by Miss Agnes Watson, 1937. Image reproduced via Art UK under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).
This picturesque wooden hand-operated post-mill once stood in the small farming village of Toot Hill near Ongar in Essex, just a few miles from Epping. It was struck by lightning in 1829, and the miller hilmself was horribly injured. But then it was rebuilt, and operated till around the end of the Victorian period. At length it fell into disuse, and was demolished in 1935. Macdougall must have painted in during its period of dilapidation, when it was already a relic of the past, and has captured this piece of agricultural archeology on a curiously appropriate surface: as well as being suitable for the subject, hessian, with its "rugged surface texture" (Ward 79) captures the rural nature of the scene. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Powell, W. R., ed. A History of the County of Essex: Volume 4, Ongar Hundred. British History Online. Web. 10 October 2024.
Toot Mill, Toot Hill, Essex. Web. 10 October 2024.
Ward, Gerald W.R., ed. The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Created 10 October 2024