Details

The monument includes a medieval post mill mound, located on the top of
Brynards Hill, overlooking the low lying Kimmeridge clay farmland between
Wootton Bassett and the chalk escarpment to the south.
The postmill mound is now used as a roundabout and surrounded by a modern
housing development. It survives as a circular mound about 0.6m high and has
a diameter of 21m. The monument was subject to partial excavation in 1891 and
found to contain potsherds, fragments of iron and charcoal.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Post mills were the form of windmills in the medieval period in which the
wooden superstructure rotated about a central vertical post. The central post
was mounted on cross timbers which were stabilised by being set into a mound.
This mound might be newly built but earlier mounds were also frequently
reused. The whole superstructure of such a mill was rotated to face into the
wind by pushing a horizontal pole projecting from the mill on the opposite
side from the sails. The end of this pole was supported by a wheel and
rotation eventually resulted in a shallow ditch surrounding the mill mound.
Post mills were in use from the 12th century onwards. No medieval examples of
the wooden superstructures survive today but the mounds, typically between 15m
and 25m in diameter, survive as field monuments. In general, only those mounds
which are components of larger sites or which are likely to preserve organic
remains will be considered worthy of protection through scheduling. However,
some mills reused earlier mounds, such as castle mottes and barrows, which are
worthy of protection in their own right.

The monument survives well and is a good example of this class of monument.
Partial excavation has shown that it contains archaeological remains and
environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it
was constructed.

Source: Historic England