Old Windmill Observatory: The Tower Mill

About this audio guide

This guide to the Old Windmill Observatory, also called the Tower Mill, in Brisbane follows the penal colony's plan to grind its own flour rather than pay to ship it in from Sydney in the eighteen twenties. You'll hear why the windmill's design failed almost as soon as it was built, and how the settlement kept the millstones turning by punishing convicts on a treadmill instead. Best heard standing at the base of the tower, looking up toward its single upper window.