There was once many more buildings on the site serving the Windmill activities and we see this as an opportunity to reinstate buildings that once existed so that the story is traced and the ethos of production continued.
We propose two new additions:
1) reinstating the Old Bakery with a new utilitarian building used for communal food and waste production and
2) extending Thatch Cottage to the larger footprint it once occupied.
The new additions help consolidate the listed building group and give clarity to the way people access buildings and move between the buildings.
The shared spaces between them – courtyard, gardens and terraces – provide places where people can socialise, cook and eat together.
There is a history of flood defence walls and bunds within and around the site which the new bunds take their cue from.
Ponds also have an historical role in the area with the ‘Sussex ponds’ used as furnace/ hammer ponds. Today many of these are still present and have been transformed to provide freshwater habitats.
The ring of vegetated bunds will provide a natural landscape which surrounds and screens the new and existing buildings and retain a sense of green, openness that supports the aims of the Strategic Gap designation and enhances the adjacent important natural landscape.
The bunds will vary in height from between 1-5m so that the higher bunds can contain garaging and buildings wholly concealing them and where in close proximity to the listed buildings will provide a more attractive setting.
Clymping Mill 