Site overview
Gringley Windmill is a surviving tower corn mill at Mill Hill, Gringley-on-the-Hill. The present brick tower was built around 1830 by Jabez Wilkinson, replacing an earlier post mill on the same site. The four-stage battered circular tower is built of brick and retains dentillated eaves, a curb, segmental-headed openings, and remains of the former timber cap.
It was derelict by 1977 and was listed at Grade II in 1983. Later reuse has converted the tower into office accommodation as part of a business centre. The available evidence establishes the early nineteenth-century tower, its predecessor mill, dereliction before listing, surviving fabric, and modern restoration.
Detailed machinery, miller chronology, and the final working date are not identified in the consulted sources.
Map
History
Gringley Windmill stands on Mill Hill at Gringley-on-the-Hill. A windmill site existed there before the present tower, and the nineteenth-century brick tower replaced an earlier post mill on the same site. The present mill was built around 1830 by Jabez Wilkinson. It was a tower corn mill, with a battered circular brick tower rising through four stages. The listed description records dentillated eaves and curb, remains of a timber cap, and segmental-headed openings. The first stage has a west doorway and two iron-frame glazing-bar casements, while the upper stages each have two-light unglazed timber casements. Internally, remains of the fourth-stage floor were recorded.
By 1977 the tower was derelict. It was first listed at Grade II on 21 January 1983. Later restoration brought the windmill tower back into use as office accommodation, with four floors of workspace inside the historic tower. The modern reuse preserves the tower as part of a business centre, but no complete working machinery or detailed final operating date has been identified in the consulted sources.
Timeline
Brick tower mill built
Tower derelict
Listed at Grade II
Sources and records
Windmill World entry: Gringley-on-the-Hill windmill
Mills Archive catalogue entries for Gringley-on-the-Hill tower mill
The Mill Business Centre description of Gringley Windmill Tower
Gringley-on-the-Hill village history summary