Site overview

Black Mill, also known as Sober Hall Windmill, is a former tower corn mill at Ingleby Barwick. The brick-built tower dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and was originally part of the Sober Hall Farm complex. The mill is recorded as a corn mill with an associated horse engine and granary.

By the late twentieth century it had become a roofed shell, but it still retained threshing machinery. The wider Sober Hall farm complex was restored around 2001 and adapted for private residential use. The surviving mill is now a converted tower within the modern residential landscape of Ingleby Barwick.

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

Black Mill stood at Sober Hall Farm, Ingleby Barwick, and is also known as Sober Hall Windmill. The surviving structure is a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century brick-built tower windmill. It formed part of the Sober Hall Farm complex, which included a farmhouse, granary, barn, horse engine, windmill, and byres.

The mill was a corn mill, with an associated horse engine providing an alternative power arrangement within the farm group. By the twentieth century the mill had lost its complete working form. Photographic records from 1935 show the tower only, roofed with a conical roof. Later records describe it as a shell in 1992, and local accounts note that it remained a ruin into the 1990s while still containing threshing machinery.

The Sober Hall farm complex was restored around 2001 and converted into private residential use. Black Mill now survives as a converted former tower corn mill, incorporated into the altered farmstead and surrounded by the modern housing development of Ingleby Barwick. Its survival preserves the principal remnant of a wind-powered corn mill once attached to Sober Hall Farm.

Timeline

1780–1830

Tower windmill built

Black Mill is recorded as a late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century brick-built tower windmill at Sober Hall Farm.
1843

Corn mill recorded

Sober Hall Mill is recorded as a corn mill at Ingleby Barwick.
1935

Roofed tower photographed

Photographic records show Black Mill as a tower only, with a conical roof.
1992

Tower shell recorded

The former tower mill was recorded as a shell.
2001

Farm complex restored

The Sober Hall Farm complex, including the windmill, was restored and adapted for private residential use around 2001.

Sources and records

Historic England Research Record
Windmill World site entry
Mills Archive site record
Hidden Teesside article
Picture Stockton Archive article
North East Mills list
Windmill Photographic Register