Crowfield Windmill is a smock mill

Smock mill

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 at Crowfield

Crowfield, Suffolk

Crowfield is a village from Ipswich which is the county town of Suffolk. Crowfield is in Helmingham and Coddenham ward in the Mid Suffolk local authority in the East of England region.As at the 2001 Census, Mid Suffolk 007B had 2,034 residents...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, England which has been conserved.

History

Crowfield Windmill was originally built as a drainage mill

Windpump

A windpump is a windmill used for pumping water, either as a source of fresh water from wells, or for draining low-lying areas of land. Once a common fixture on farms in semi-arid areas, windpumps are still used today where electric power is not available or too expensive.-History:Windmills were...

 near Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...

. It was moved to Crowfield c1840 and converted to a corn mill

Gristmill

The terms gristmill or grist mill can refer either to a building in which grain is ground into flour, or to the grinding mechanism itself.- Early history :...

. The mill worked by wind until 1916 when the cap was blown off. An auxiliary engine was used to power the millstones until the mid 1930s.

Description

Crowfield Windmill is a three storey smock mill on a single storey brick base. It had four patent sails and the boat shaped cap was winded by a fantail. It has two pairs of underdrift

Mill machinery

This article covers the various major pieces of mill machinery to be found in windmills, watermills and horse mills. It does not cover machinery found in modern factories.-Watermill machinery:Axle...

 millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s which are mounted on a hurst frame.