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Post corn mill operated
Great Hormead Post Mill was a wind-powered post mill used for corn milling.
Site overview
Great Hormead Post Mill was one of a pair of windmills at Great Hormead, standing close to the village's smock mill. Specialist mill records identify it as a post corn mill. Photographic archive material shows the post mill both as part of the paired mill site and later in ruined condition, with details of the central post, trestle, crowntree, tailpole winch, and bracing recorded.
By 2003 only few remains survived: the mainpost was lying on the ground and the brick piers remained, probably reduced in height. The site is therefore a fragmentary survival of a former wind-powered corn mill rather than a standing working structure.
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
Great Hormead Post Mill was a wind-powered corn mill at Great Hormead. It formed part of a distinctive paired mill site with the neighbouring smock mill, and twentieth-century photographic records show the two mills together before the loss of the complete structures.
The post mill was recorded in detailed photographic sequences showing its front, side, rear, post bracing, central post, collar, crowntree, tailpole winch, substructure, and frame bracing. These records preserve useful evidence for its construction even though the mill body no longer stands. Later images recorded the site as wreckage, with the smock mill nearby.
By 2003 the post mill had been reduced to few remains. The mainpost was lying on the ground and the brick piers survived, probably reduced in height. The surviving site no longer retains the buck, sails, stones, or working machinery as a complete mill. Its significance lies in the survival of structural fragments and in the documentary and photographic evidence for a Hertfordshire post mill that once stood in close association with Great Hormead's smock mill.
Timeline
1925
Derelict mill photographed
Photographic records show the post mill derelict with four sails in 1925, with the smock mill also visible.
1947
Ruined post structure recorded
Photographs recorded the ruined post, crowntree, and trestle, with the roofed-over smock tower nearby.
2003
Few remains recorded
The mainpost was lying on the ground and the brick piers remained, probably reduced in height.
Sources and records
Windmill World site entry
Mills Archive site record
Muggeridge Collection photographic records
Windmill World Hertfordshire windmills list
Guy Blythman addenda on windmill photographs
Mills Archive site record
Muggeridge Collection photographic records
Windmill World Hertfordshire windmills list
Guy Blythman addenda on windmill photographs