With the help of The North Shore Heritage Trust, the Long Bay Historical Society has fulfilled its dream of restoring one of the windmills that for years was used on the Vaughan Farm at Long Bay.

As well as funding the cost of reproducing the windmill, the Trust was able to give valuable assistance with the building and resource consent processes needed to get the project underway.

Until the Second World War, the farm, owned for over 100 years by the Vaughan family, and centred around the Vaughan Homestead on the northern end of Long Bay, used windmills to draw the water essential for its operation. Important design information for the reproduction was obtained from the remnants of one of these, which was found in the homestead's remaining outbuilding.

The fully functioning windmill, located adjacent to the Vaughan Homestead, will be used to help visitors better understand and appreciate the agricultural use and development of the Long Bay area that started in the mid-nineteenth century and has only very recently begun to change.