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Corn milling function recorded
Normanton Common Mill is recorded as a tower mill used for corn milling.
Site overview
Normanton Common Mill is a former tower corn mill at South Normanton. Specialist mill records place the tower at Normanton Common and describe it as a corn mill later converted to house use. The conversion has substantially altered the visible windmill character of the structure, leaving a survival that is almost unrecognisable as a windmill.
Windmill lists record the mill as a tower mill of the 1850s, still mapped or recorded in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A 1994 photographic record captured the building during its altered post-milling life, and a 2006 photograph recorded the former mill at Normanton Common after conversion. The site preserves a domestic reuse of a former wind-powered corn mill within South Normanton's wider group of windmill sites.
Map
Map markers and directions links are provided for location reference only and do not indicate public access or permission to enter a site.
No site photograph is currently available. Images will be added as field visits are carried out.
History
Normanton Common Mill was a tower corn mill at South Normanton. It formed part of the local wind-powered milling landscape alongside the Fordbridge Lane tower mill and the South Normanton post mill. The mill is recorded as a tower mill, with a construction date in the 1850s in Derbyshire windmill lists.
The mill's working role was corn milling. Later mapped and list references place it within the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century record of South Normanton windmills. After the end of its working life, the tower was converted to house use. This conversion substantially changed the building's appearance, and later descriptions emphasise that the former mill had been so altered that it was almost unrecognisable as a windmill.
A 1994 photograph recorded the altered former tower mill, and a 2006 photographic record identified the site as Normanton Common Mill. The surviving building is therefore a post-milling domestic adaptation rather than an intact or restored tower mill. Its value lies in preserving the position and fabric of one of South Normanton's former corn windmills, even though the original working form has been heavily absorbed into later residential use.
Timeline
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Converted to house use
The former tower mill was converted to house use and heavily altered.
1850–1859
Tower mill constructed
Normanton Common Mill is recorded as a tower mill dating from the 1850s.
1880–1905
Mill recorded in later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
The tower mill appeared in windmill lists and mapping references between 1880 and 1905.
1994
Converted tower mill photographed
The altered former tower mill at South Normanton was photographed in 1994.
2006
Normanton Common Mill photographed
The former Normanton Common Mill was photographed after conversion in December 2006.
Sources and records
Windmill World site entry
Mills Archive site record
Geograph photographic record
List of windmills in Derbyshire
Mills Archive site record
Geograph photographic record
List of windmills in Derbyshire