Little Melton Tower Mill Little Melton · Norfolk · England

Little Melton tower windmill was a five-storey tarred red-brick mill in Mill Road, Little Melton, standing in the garden of the Mill House beside the road. Its coordinates correspond to Little Melton rather than Costessey. The tower had offset windows and carried a Norfolk boat-shaped cap with petticoat, gallery and a six-bladed fan.

It was fitted with four double-shuttered patent sails, each with eight bays of three shutters. The mill was mapped as a windmill by the Ordnance Survey in 1838, and directory entries record Thomas Burrows as miller in 1836, John Yeoman in the mid 1840s, John Wright Lovett in the 1850s, Frederick Wright in 1858 and 1859, and Samuel Barrell from the early 1860s. A storm in November 1861 damaged the mill, and Thomas Smithdale of St Ann's Iron Works, Norwich, prepared an estimate for a new cap, curb, winding tackle, new and repaired sails, stocks, striking tackle, brake-wheel segments and tail gudgeon.

Notices in the Norfolk News during the 1860s advertised for apprentices and miller-bakers for Samuel Barrell's milling and baking business. By 1904 the mill was using auxiliary steam power, and auction notices described a well-built brick tower windmill fitted with steam gear, with cart shed, gig house and granary. The sale was made under instructions from the trustee under Samuel Barrell's deed of assignment.

Later photographic and site notes show decline in the wind equipment: a 1937 painting recorded the mill without sails or fantail but still with cap, petticoat and windshaft; in 1939 the cap, part of the petticoat and windshaft remained; by 1990 the tower was an empty shell without roof, doors or windows and with heavy ivy cover. Norfolk Mills records that in 2012 the tower was fitted with a shallow pitched octagonal roof and given a new coat of tar.