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Paignton Windmill, also known as Fernicombe Windmill,[1] is a late 18th-century Grade II listed building on the outskirts of the town of Paignton, Devon. The now disused four-storey windmill is built of limestone rubble with locally sourced red breccia dressings.[2]
An illustration of 1833 shows the mill complete, but less than thirty years later it had fallen into disrepair, and was shown as disused on the 1887 Ordnance Survey map. During the Second World War (1939–1945) the windmill was used as an observation post.[1]
The windmill’s deterioration into a partially ruinous state, missing its original dome-shaped roof and with no internal floors,[2] resulted in it being included in Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register.[3] In 2015 Torbay Council approved its conversion to a single residential unit, despite the objections of local residents who wanted to see it restored to a working windmill as a tourist attraction.[4]