|
| |
Listed Building Description*
Cromer Windmill at road junction NE of village,
Cromer Mill Lane, Cromer
Post-mill. C18 (said to be c172O), ceased working
c1923, body repaired c1937, restored with sails and fantail 1967-9.
Timber frame with horizontal white weatherboarding carried up over
ogee shaped cap. Supported above an octagonal red brick roundhouse
with felted roof. Elaborately geared fantail, with openwork blades
and with carriage fixed to broad ladder at rear. Cast iron windshaft
for 4 patent sails (without shutters) now dismantled and stored next
the mill. A 2-storeys rotating mill carried on a very large faceted
central post supported by a large timber trestle protected by the
round house. The body is carried on a massive crown-tree in the
middle floor from which the rest of the timber frame is hung. 2
stones are now set in the upper floor in the breast of the mill,
with cast iron gearing and separate centrifugal governors at high
level in the lower floor. A hoist pulled up grain bags to the top of
the mill through a trap door and wooden chutes took the ground flour
to the lower floor. A steep ladder joins the two and small shuttered
apertures light the interior. The brake-wheel and brake have been
dismantled. The stones said to have been formerly arranged with one
in tail and one in the breast but this gave trouble and altered to
present arrangement and tailpole replaced by present automatic
fantail. The mill stands on an artificial mound the site for the
manorial windmill acquired c1222 (VCH (1912) 196). Of special
interest as a conspicuous landmark and the county's only remaining
post-mill. (Branch Johnson (197O) 52: Pevsner (1977) 73: D Smith
English Windmills II London 1932: A C Smith Cromer Windmill
Stevenage Mus. 1975
2/1. Grade II*. Listed in 1984.
*Since compilation of this description, the date of building has
been positively established, and the mill has been restored to
working order. However, although the sails are turned when wind
allows, the mill does not grind.
|
|
|
