Hindringham Upper Tower Mill Hindringham · Norfolk · England

Hindringham Upper towermill stood in the middle of the village on the south side of Wells Road next to the Chequers pub. Norfolk Mills records that it was also known as Summer Green towermill, that the site was known as Graver's City from the 1839 landlord and miller Thomas Graver, and that in later years it became known as Lake's mill. The mill had two pairs of double-shuttered patent sails, each with seven bays of three shutters, driving two pairs of French burr stones. Its Norfolk boat-shaped cap had a six-bladed fan, gallery and petticoat. A bake office and general shop were also run on the premises.

The mill was built in 1829. In March and April 1834 it was advertised for sale by auction at the Black Lion Inn, Little Walsingham, as a very superior brick-built tower windmill with patent sails, three floors and two pairs of French stones. The premises included a dwelling house, baking office, shop, cow house, cart house, piggery and other buildings, with about an acre of adjoining land. The 1839 tithe award recorded Gurneys, Birkbeck & Co. as owners and Thomas Daplyn as occupier. Norfolk Mills states that Thomas Daplyn mortgaged the mill, mill house, bakery, shop and stables to Messrs Gurney & Birkbeck, defaulted, and the bank repossessed the complex in 1839 before selling it to his cousin, also Thomas Daplyn.

By 1856 the mill had been heightened to four floors. Sale particulars that year described a powerful brick tower windmill with four floors, four new patent sails, two pairs of new French stones, a wheat chamber for six lasts and complete going gears, with barn, stables, cart lodge, piggery and other outbuildings. It also had a dwelling house, grocer's and draper's shop and a newly erected bake office with granary over it. William Sands was recorded as miller in the 1850s. In 1864 he sold the mill to John Lake senior, farmer, who had previously been at Lower Green towermill. John Lake was recorded as miller and farmer in 1864 and as miller and baker in 1883. His effects were sold in 1885 due to bankruptcy, and the mill was advertised to let that year as a brick tower windmill in good repair.

Robert Wall was recorded as miller by 1888 and in directory entries from 1892 to 1904. In 1900 the executors of John Lake junior sold the mill to Frederick Playle. A 1900 sale advertisement described a dwelling house, baking office, cottage, stables, sheds, pightle of land and an excellent tower windmill in good order, occupied by Robert Whall. A portable steam engine was in operation by 1906 to supply supplementary power. The mill was sold in 1913 for £165.

By 1937 the mill was represented in a Karl Wood painting as having only the cap frame and windshaft, and in the same year the tower was recorded with windshaft and fantail frame. Around 1938 the mill was pulled down by a traction engine belonging to Shackcloth Bros. A later note from 2018 records that a house on the site has a section shaped like a two-storey tower-mill stump with a low conical roof, though the writer treated this cautiously as possibly a faux stump rather than a surviving original fragment.