Lower Mill or Opposition Mill is a Grade II* listed 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 Dalham

Dalham

Dalham is a small settlement in Suffolk, England. It is west of the town of Bury St Edmunds.-Dalham Hall:In 1901 the estate of Dalham Hall was bought by Cecil Rhodes...

, 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

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...

 which has been preserved.

History

Lower Mill or Opposition Mill was built in the 1790s by a Mr Ruffle. The sails were blown off in 1802. She was working until 1926 and by 1935 was in need of repairs. These were completed in 1938 but the mill again deteriorated until it was purchased in 1972 by Frank Farrow and restoration began with the intention of returning the mill to working order, assisted by grants from Suffolk County Council

Suffolk County Council

Suffolk County Council is the administrative authority for the county of Suffolk, England. It is run by 72 elected county councillors representing 63 divisions...

 and the Historic Buildings Council for England

Historic Buildings Council

Three separate Historic Buildings Councils were created by the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953, one for each of England, Scotland and Wales...

. The windmill's restoration work was carried out by Gormley and Goodman Engineers of Warwickshire between 1979 and 1980. (see also Bromham Watermill and Stevington Windmill, Bedfordshire.

Description

Lower Mill is a three storey smock mill on a single storey brick base. It has a beehive cap with a gallery which was winded by a 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 four Patent sails were 27 feet (8.23 m) long and 7 feet (2.13 m) wide carried on a cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 windshaft. They drove three pairs of French Burr 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 on the first floor.

Millers

• William Ruffle 1804-55
• George Moore 1855-75
• Abraham Simpson 1875-85
• Joseph Tabraham 1875-
• John Tabraham 1875-
• Josiah Tabraham
• John Tabraham
• Lewis Tabraham
• Elijah Rutterford 1904
• Charles Kerridge 1908
• Turner -1926

Reference for above:-

External links

• Windmill World webpage on Dalham Mill.