1839
Tower mill built
The Debenham tower mill was built in 1839, replacing an earlier post mill.
Site overview
Debenham tower mill was a wind-powered corn mill at Debenham, Suffolk. It was built in 1839, replacing an earlier post mill on the site. The mill appears in specialist windmill records as a tower mill and is identified by Windmill World as a truncated former corn mill.
Photographic material from the twentieth century shows the mill with surviving sails in 1938, while later records identify the tower as truncated. The tower mill was mostly demolished in December 1962, leaving surviving lower fabric rather than a complete windmill. The evidence is limited, but the site is clearly associated with a nineteenth-century tower corn mill and later truncation.
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
Debenham had more than one windmill site, including earlier post mills and Page's Mill. The tower mill at the supplied coordinates was built in 1839 and replaced an earlier post mill. It was a wind-powered corn mill.
Twentieth-century photographic material includes a view of the Debenham tower mill taken on 31 July 1938, when it still had two sails. Later windmill records identify the site as a truncated tower mill. The mill was mostly demolished in December 1962, so the surviving structure is not a complete working windmill.
The available detail does not establish a fuller sequence of millers, machinery, or exact closure date, but the site can be documented as a nineteenth-century tower corn mill whose remaining fabric represents the truncated survival of the former mill.
Timeline
1938
Two-sail photograph
A photograph taken on 31 July 1938 shows the tower mill with two sails.
1962
Mostly demolished
The Debenham tower mill was mostly demolished in December 1962.
Sources and records
Windmill World entry: Debenham windmill
Wikipedia list article: List of windmills in Suffolk
Suffolk Mills Group index of Suffolk windmills
Kent Archive Muggeridge Collection record: Debenham tower mill photograph
Mills Archive catalogue entry: Wallower, tower mill, Debenham
Wikipedia list article: List of windmills in Suffolk
Suffolk Mills Group index of Suffolk windmills
Kent Archive Muggeridge Collection record: Debenham tower mill photograph
Mills Archive catalogue entry: Wallower, tower mill, Debenham