Lower Green Mill is a tower mill

Tower mill

A tower mill is a type of windmill which consists of a brick or stone tower, on top of which sits a roof or cap which can be turned to bring the sails into the wind....

 at Lower Green, located to the north of the village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 of Hindringham

Hindringham

Hindringham is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is north east of the town of Fakenham, west of Cromer and north of London. The nearest railway station is at Sheringham for the Bittern Line which runs between Sheringham, Cromer and Norwich...

 in the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

 of Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

. The mill stands on the east side of the lane between Hindringham and Binham

Binham

Binham is a coastal village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk.The village is north west of Norwich, west of Cromer and north north east of London. The village lies east south east of the town of Wells-next-the-Sea.The nearest railway station is at Sheringham for the Bittern...

 and is four miles east of Walsingham

Walsingham

Walsingham is a village in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre...

. The structure is a grade II listed building.

Description

The tower is constructed from Norfolk red bricks and has five storeys. On the top of the tower there was a Norfolk clinker boat style cap with a six-bladed fantail

Windmill fantail

A Fantail is a small windmill mounted at right angles to the sails, at the rear of the windmill, and which turns the cap automatically to bring it into the wind. The fantail was patented in 1745 by Edmund Lee, a blacksmith working at Brockmill Forge near Wigan, England, and perfected on mills...

. The cap had a gallery and a petticoat around the base of the cap. The mill had four sails with double shutters each with eight bays of three shutters. The sails powered three pairs of millstones, of which one had a diameter of five feet. The internal machinery also included a sifter and a flour mill. Also on site a bakehouse was built in 1862. In March 1860 the windmill was badly damaged in a gale

Gale

A gale is a very strong wind. There are conflicting definitions of how strong a wind must be to be considered a gale. The U.S. government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34–47 knots of sustained surface winds. Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are...

 which prompted a 10 horse power Garwood steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

 to be installed to act as auxiliary power.

History

The windmill was built in 1844 and is located on the site of an early post mill

Post mill

The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. The defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. The earliest post mills in England are thought to have...

. In 1908, after 64 years, Hindringham Lower Green tower windmill ceased working as a mill. In 1920 the windmill was sold by the Gunthorpe

Gunthorpe, Norfolk

Gunthorpe is a village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is 8.6 miles east north east of the town of Fakenham, 14.9 miles west south west of Cromer and 122 miles north north east of London. The nearest railway station is at Sheringham for the Bittern Line which runs...

Estate and by 1937 the mill had become derelict. In 1970 the mill was sold and renovation work began to turn the windmill into residential use. In 1985 renovation work was carried out again with a new clinker boat-shape cap fitted with a gallery and a window. The windmill is a private residence and is not open to the public at the present time.