Mill Lane Mill, Carbrooke
Encyclopedia
Mill Lane Mill is a Grade II listed 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 Carbrooke
Carbrooke
Carbrooke is a village and civil parish in the Breckland district of mid-Norfolk, East Anglia, England in the United Kingdom. It is from the centre of Watton, from Dereham and from its postal town of Thetford...

, 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...

, 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 conserved with some machinery remaining.

History

Mill Lane Mill was built in 1856, replacing a 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...

 which had been standing in 1811. The mill was built for Richard Dewing of Carbrooke Hall. Dewing died on 22 November 1876 and the estate was managed by Edward May Dewing. A 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...

 had been installed as auxiliary power by 1888, driving a separate pair of millstones. The mill was offered for sale by auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

 on 30 July 1900 at the Mart, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 EC. It was bought by Herbert Jeremiah Minns, who was the sitting tenant. The mill was part freehold and part copyhold
Copyhold
At its origin in medieval England, copyhold tenure was tenure of land according to the custom of the manor, the "title deeds" being a copy of the record of the manorial court....

. A pair of sails from Little Cressingham were fitted in 1920. Minns died on 16 August 1921 and the mill passed to his son Herbert Willie Minns. In 1932, the sails were removed by Martins, millwright
Millwright
A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...

s of Beccles
Beccles
Beccles is a market town and civil parish in the Waveney District of the English county of Suffolk. The town is shown on the milestone as from London via the A145 Blythburgh and A12 road, northeast of London as the crow flies, southeast of Norwich, and north northeast of the county town of...

, 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...

.

In that year a 1911 13/17 hp
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

 (10/13 kW) Crossley
Crossley
Crossley, based in Manchester, United Kingdom, was a pioneering company in the production of internal combustion engines. Since 1988 it has been part of the Rolls-Royce Power Engineering group.More than 100,000 Crossley oil and gas engines have been built....

 hot bulb paraffin engine
Hot bulb engine
The hot bulb engine, or hotbulb or heavy oil engine is a type of internal combustion engine. It is an engine in which fuel is ignited by being brought into contact with a red-hot metal surface inside a bulb....

 was installed. This has previously powered a searchlight
Searchlight
A searchlight is an apparatus that combines a bright light source with some form of curved reflector or other optics to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direction, usually constructed so that it can be swiveled about.-Military use:The Royal Navy used...

 during the First World War and had subsequently been used at Hall Farm, Carbrooke. Milling continued until 1943 using the engine as the source of power. The mill was conveyed to Herbert Henry Minns on 1 August 1967. The cap frame and windshaft were removed in October 1979 by millwright John Lawn and a temporary cap fitted to the mill. Later, a small wind turbine
Small wind turbine
Small wind turbines are wind turbines which have lower energy output than large commercial wind turbines, such as those found in wind farms. These turbines may be as small as a fifty watt generator for boat, caravan, or miniature refrigeration unit. Small units often have direct drive generators,...

 was affixed to the top of the tower. The mill retains all machinery from wallower down.

Description

Mill Lane Mill is a five storey tower mill. The tower is 17 feet (5.18 m) internal diameter at ground level with walls 2 feet (609.6 mm) thick. It had a boat shaped cap winded by an eight bladed fantail. There were four double Patent sails, carried on a 12 in 6 in (3.81 m) longcast iron windshaft. The last sails carried were an odd pair. Those on the inner stock had eight bays of three shutters while those on the outer stock had nine bays of three shutters. The latter sails had previously been on Little Cressingham Mill. The windshaft was cast by W H Wigg & Co, millwrights of East Dereham, and dates to 1879/80. The brake wheel drove a cast iron wallower which was cast by G R Cowen & Co, Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

 and dates to 1871 at the earliest. Other machinery in the mill is said to have been made in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. It was made to metric measurements. The 8 in 6 in (2.59 m) diameter great spur wheel is of cast iron with wooden cogs. The stone nuts are of cast iron. One has 20 cogs, one has 24 cogs and the third has 25 cogs.

Millers

  • Henry Knights (1856-63)
  • George Goddard (1863-78)
  • Samuel Goddard (1879-90)
  • Herbert Jeremiah Minns (1892-1921)
  • Herbert Willie Minns (1921-43)


Reference for above:-

External links

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