1750
Tenant millers recorded
The Cole brothers were recorded as tenant millers at the Reepham Mill Hill post mill site.
Site overview
Reepham Mill Hill post mill stood on Mill Hill on the east side of Ollands Road, west of Reepham Moor. It was one of two mills on Ollands Road and was recorded with tenant millers in 1750. Later directory and map evidence identifies the mill through the early nineteenth century, including Robert Barrett as miller and an 1838 Ordnance Survey windmill marking.
In 1848 the mill was moved and rebuilt at Booton after trees around one of the Ollands Road mills were not cut down. The evidence establishes the Reepham site as the original position of a post mill rather than the place where the mill ended its working life. Details of its machinery before removal are limited in the identified sources.
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
Reepham Mill Hill post mill stood on Mill Hill on the east side of Ollands Road and to the west of Reepham Moor. The site was one of two windmill locations on Ollands Road. A record of 1750 names the Cole brothers as tenant millers at the site, and later trade-directory entries record Robert Barrett as miller at Hackford, Cawston Road, and Reepham in the 1830s.
The mill was marked as a windmill on the 1838 Ordnance Survey map. The later history of the structure is defined by its removal rather than by demolition on the Reepham site. In 1848 the mill was moved and rebuilt at Booton by Mr. R. George, father-in-law of Samuel Eglington.
The reason recorded for the move was that one of the Ollands Road mills had become surrounded by trees that the Bircham family refused to cut down. The available evidence does not provide a full technical inventory for the mill at Reepham, but it confirms the site, its post-mill identity, its nineteenth-century operation, and its removal to Booton.
Timeline
1838
Windmill mapped
The mill was shown as a windmill on the 1838 Ordnance Survey map.
1848
Mill moved to Booton
The post mill was moved from Reepham and rebuilt at Booton.
Sources and records
Norfolk Mills page: Reepham Ollands Road post windmill
WindmillWorld county list: Windmills of Norfolk
WindmillWorld county list: Windmills of Norfolk