Site overview
Lelley Windmill is a wind-powered corn tower mill on Mill Lane, Elstronwick. It was built in 1790 for Peter Sumper and was later raised to six storeys. The mill was adapted for auxiliary steam power in 1873 and later used an oil engine.
It eventually became disused and derelict, but retained much of its machinery. The cap, sails, and fantail are missing, while the wind shaft, cap frame, millstones, grain bins, flour-dressing machinery, vertical steam boiler, and chimney survive. It is Grade II* listed.
Map
History
Lelley Windmill was built in 1790 for the miller Peter Sumper. Its broad splayed brick base may pre-date the present tower and may have formed part of an earlier eighteenth-century post mill. The tarred brick tower was probably built from within the structure, with most of the mill machinery installed at the same time or shortly afterwards.
During the early nineteenth century the tower was raised to six storeys, creating a second stone floor and increasing the sail height. One millstone carries a maker's plate for Robert Nutt of Hull. In 1873 an ancillary steam engine was installed, and by the mid-1890s oil-engine power was being used to drive two pairs of four-foot stones for flour and grist.
The mill later fell out of use and became derelict, but it was not stripped for scrap. The tower retains its timber sheer beam frame, wind shaft, floors, upright shaft, wallower, great spur wheel, millstones, tuns, hoppers, tentering gear, governors, flour-dressing machinery, grain bins, sack-hoist arrangement, and other process equipment. The cap, sails, and fantail are missing, but the cap frame, cast-iron wind shaft, Lincolnshire cross, and neck bearing remain.
A brick engine-room annexe, chimney, and mid-to-late nineteenth-century vertical steam boiler also survive beside the tower. Lelley Windmill is Grade II* listed.
Timeline
Tower heightened
Steam engine installed
Oil engine in use
Grade II* listing
Listing amended
Sources and records
Windmill World site entry
Mills Archive mill record
Historic England archive photographs
BBC News item on Lelley Windmill
Gregory and Turner, Windmills of Yorkshire