Thrigby Post Windmill is located in the civil parish of

Mautby Mautby is a village and civil parish in the county of Norfolk, England. The parish comprises a largely rural area along the north bank of the River Bure, and also includes the small villages of Runham and Thrigby. It is located some northwes ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

.''OS Explorer Map OL40'' – The Broads. The mill is on the south side of Mill Lane east of the village of Thrigby. The

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single central vertical post. The vertical post is supported by four quarter bars. These ar ...

is north of The

River Bure The River Bure is a river in the county of Norfolk, England, most of it in the Broads.Ordnance Survey (2005). ''OS Explorer Map OL40 - The Broads''. . The Bure rises near Melton Constable, upstream of Aylsham, which was the original head of ...

Breydon Water Breydon Water is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. It is a Local Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site and a Special Protection Area. It is part of the Berney Marshes and Breydon Water nature reserv ...

and the

Halvergate Marshes The Halvergate Marshes are an area of grazing marsh in the east of the English county of Norfolk. They form part of the area of The Broads and lie between the River Bure and the River Yare, bordering Breydon Water on the east. The marshes cove ...

Description

Thrigby Post

Windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

was built in about 1790 by Robert Woolmer who was the owner of close-by Thrigby Hall. The mill was constructed to grind

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

produced on the Thrigby estate. The post mill has a two-foot-square

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

main post that rises vertically through the round house roof and carries the weatherboard clad body or "buck" of the mill, which contains all the machinery. The post mill was able to be turned on the centre post to bring the sails into the

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

. The mill has four

common sails Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different forms, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails. Jib sails The jib sail is found in Mediterranean countries and consists of a simple triangle of cloth wound r ...

and is built over a brick roundhouse which created a covered storage area and protecting the trestle from the

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

History

The post mill can be clearly seen on the 1797 map of the area produced by Faden. The last miller of Thrigby was Alfred Hood who was also a local farmer. He ran the mill until 1889 when the mill ceased working. In 1892 the wooden structure of the mill was found to be infested with

death watch beetle The deathwatch beetle (''Xestobium rufovillosum'') is a species of woodboring beetle that sometimes infests the structural timbers of old buildings. The adult beetle is brown and measures on average long. Eggs are laid in dark crevices in old w ...

and was then dismantled leaving only the brick roundhouse.Thrigby Mill
History and timeline In 1981, almost one hundred years after the mill ceased working, the mill was bought by Nick Prior who set about its restoration. The roundhouse was repaired and the mill rebuilt and has become one of only three

s remaining in

. The other postmills are

Garboldisham Windmill Garboldisham Mill is a Grade II* listed post mill at Garboldisham, Norfolk, that has been restored. History Although millers were recorded in Garboldisham during the sixteenth century, the first record of a windmill was in 1739 when Ishmael Pi ...

The Norfolk Windmill Trust, Windmills to Visit Guide. 3rd Edition 1982. Page 24, The Morris Printing Co Ltd 57-61 Pitt Street Norwich, Description & Location Details between

Thetford Thetford is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road (England), A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, coverin ...

and Diss and another postmill which is being built at

South Walsham South Walsham is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 738 in 303 households at the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census. increasing to 845 livin ...

References

External links

more images
{{Windmills and Windpumps of East Anglia Windmills in Norfolk Post mills in the United Kingdom Windmills completed in 1985 Windmills of the Norfolk Broads Borough of Great Yarmouth