Windmill Farm Nature Reserve

Windmill Farm was purchased jointly by the Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society and Cornwall Wildlife Trust in 2001. This 210 acre farm is home to an array of habitats including wet and dry heaths, hay meadows, pasture, wetland, ponds and arable land. The mix of habitats means the site is home to a huge variety of plant, bird and invertebrate species.

Regretfully, due to the protected status of some of the wildlife present, dogs are not allowed on the nature reserve.

Please be aware that cattle often roam on the site during the summer and autumn months.

The site of the current Windmill Farm Nature Reserve is steeped in history. Well before its occupation for arable and pastoral use by Neolithic and early Bronze Age settlers, it was used by nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic period, who left behind them traces of their existence, revealed when the site was

The present-day nature reserve contains the sites of two Bronze Age ‘barrows’, or burial mounds – several others are located within the general vicinity of the Lower Predannack Downs. Approximately 50m south-west of the windmill tower sits one of the more unusual barrows in the country, topped, as it is, with a WWII Pillbox! (left)

The Lizard Windmill is reputed to have been built in about 1600, although the first recorded lease for the mill dates from 1755. It is believed to have been a working mill until the 1840s, serving as a farm store or livestock building thereafter.