Site overview
Trusthorpe windmill was a late nineteenth-century tower corn mill. Built by Saunderson of Louth in 1882, it was one of the last windmills constructed in Lincolnshire and was fitted with machinery from a demolished mill in Hull. The mill replaced an earlier post mill in the village.
It originally stood as an eight-storey tower, but by the later working period it was reduced, and in 1937 the tower was lowered and converted into a dwelling. Later photographic records show the surviving stump of the tower incorporated into domestic use.
Map
History
Trusthorpe windmill was built in 1882 as a tower corn mill by Saunderson of Louth. It was one of the last windmills erected in Lincolnshire and stood within a village landscape that had earlier included a post mill. The tower mill was fitted out with machinery from a demolished mill in Hull, giving it a distinctive technical lineage as well as a late construction date.
Historic photographs show the mill before its later reduction, including views with sails and cap and later views with only two sails. The mill originally rose to eight storeys, but its working form did not survive intact. In 1937 the tower was reduced in height and converted into a dwelling.
Later twentieth-century photographs record the stump of the tower, and more recent images show the house-converted remains. The surviving structure preserves a reduced but visible fragment of Trusthorpe's late wind-powered corn-milling history.
Timeline
Tower mill constructed
Hull mill machinery installed
Mill photographed with two sails
Tower reduced and converted
Sources and records
Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology photograph catalogue: Trusthorpe windmill
Mills Archive catalogue material for Trusthorpe tower mill
Guy Blythman addenda to Lincolnshire windmill photographs
List of windmills in Lincolnshire