Skerries Mills, Skerries, Co. Dublin

At Skerries the tower still does the job it was built for, its sails catching the coastal wind above a squat, nap rendered wall that gives the whole structure a slightly soft, weathered look rather than a hard architectural edge.

The mill dates from around 1750, standing some 49 feet, or roughly 15 metres, to the top of its tower. It is capped with a mansard roof, a design with two slopes on each side rather than one, which allows more headroom in the upper storey and gives the cap its distinctive silhouette. Five spring sails are set into this roof; spring sails being an improvement on the plain canvas-covered sail, incorporating a mechanism that let the miller adjust the amount of sail exposed to the wind without having to stop the whole structure and climb out to reef them by hand. The windows are timber sashes set into square headed openings with rendered reveals, and the doors are tongue and grooved timber, plain, functional joinery typical of the period. The building was restored around 1995, a project that brought the machinery back into working order rather than simply stabilising the walls.

Inside, the floor is cobbled and the machinery is not static display but working gear, geared wheels and shafts that still turn when the sails are set to catch a breeze. It is worth timing a visit for a day when the mill is actually milling, since the difference between a windmill at rest and a windmill at work is considerable; the whole tower seems to hum and shift slightly with the motion overhead, and the cobbles underfoot carry a faint vibration from the machinery grinding away above.