Thelnetham Windmill

 I spotted information about an open day at Thelnetham windmill, on the Suffolk/Norfolk border not too far from home. Somewhere to visit that I'd not been before.

The mill was built in 1819, replacing an earlier wooden post mill, and is one of only 4 preserved tower mills in Suffolk. It continued working through the C19 and  until it became redundant. Grain imports from Canada and the US with huge roller mills built right beside the docks put most windmills out of action at that time and by 1926 this mill was totally derelict.

For a while an elderly man lived in it and in a caravan beside it and then it was sold to be converted to a home - which never happened. 

In 1979 it was bought by a group of mill enthusiasts and  in one of the buildings they had a short film about the restoration of the mill in the 1980's. All done by volunteers during two week work parties each summer.

Thelnetham is a Tower Mill with only the cap turning into the wind but last week all the paddle bits on the sails were removed for painting so the mill wasn't actually in action that day - sadly. But still interesting to visit as I'd not been here before.

I'm afraid I didn't do the tour of the mill as there are 4 flights of steep stairs which I didn't fancy.

These two buildings below have both been built fairly recently, one is the engine shed which has a petrol engine to run the sails on days with no wind. This replaced an earlier shed that held a steam engine. The white building is called the granary and is used for school groups and the film show.

Rather oddly it seems  that the miller never had a home on site, often there is a house called 'Mill House' nearby ,but not here.

I bought a coffee and sandwich for my lunch in the other building on the site and picked up this interesting card below, showing some of the few remaining Suffolk windmills......there were once 500 around the county and would have been one in almost every village.

I've previously visited two others that are/were open to the public at Saxtead and Thorpeness (this isn't open either at the moment),  but not for many years and most of these below are in private ownership, not open and no longer working. Saxtead is owned by English Heritage and the only windmill open regularly.

 We lived not far from Friston mill when we were in the smallholding. Tim Whiting - who is the only Millwright in Suffolk and was at school with Son  hopes to restore it ........one day!

 I had friends round yesterday  afternoon - so no catch up on Summer of Sport except I did  see Taylor Fritz getting knocked out and heard that Djokovic had a walkover into the semis because Alex de Minaur pulled out.

And no intention to be online at 10pm last night  to comment on the result of the England v Netherland game, I'll leave that to others!

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