Site overview

Hoyle's Mill is a former tower corn mill at Friskney. It stands on Drainmill Lane near the Low Road boundary with Wainfleet St Mary and is protected as a Grade II listed building. Friskney formerly had more than one windmill, including Toft Mill and Kitching's Mill, but Hoyle's Mill is the dumpy tower mill survival identified in specialist records.

It is recorded as a corn mill, and historic photographic material shows it in windmill form before later loss of its complete working appearance. The present site preserves the listed tower fabric of Friskney's former wind-powered corn-milling landscape.

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

Hoyle's Mill was one of Friskney's tower corn mills. It stood near the Low Road boundary with Wainfleet St Mary, while Friskney also had Toft Mill and Kitching's Mill. This concentration of mills reflects the agricultural setting of the parish and its position within the Lincolnshire coastal plain.

The mill is recorded in specialist sources as a tower corn mill. Historic photographs from the 1930s preserve its working windmill appearance, and later material records the tower after the loss of cap and sails. Local windmill notes identify Hoyle's Mill as the dumpy tower that survives today.

The building is protected as a Grade II listed structure under the name Hoyle's Windmill. Although the mill is no longer complete as a working windmill, its masonry tower remains a clear survival of Friskney's wind-powered milling history. Its significance is strengthened by its place within a parish that had several windmills, including both tower and post mills, and by the survival of historic photographic records showing its earlier form.

Timeline

Corn milling use recorded

The mill is recorded as a tower corn mill at Friskney.
1800–1849

Tower mill built

Hoyle's Mill is recorded as an early nineteenth-century tower mill.
1933–1935

Windmill photographed

Photographic records from the 1930s show Hoyle's Mill in windmill form.
1987

Grade II listed

Hoyle's Windmill was listed at Grade II on 17 December 1987.

Sources and records

Historic England listed building information
Windmill World site entry
Mills Archive record
Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology photographic catalogue
Lincolnshire Windmills by Peter Dolman
Muggeridge Collection photographic records