Gooderstone Street Tower Mill Gooderstone · Norfolk · England

Gooderstone Street towermill stood just south of the main street at Gooderstone. Norfolk Mills records it as near the church and opposite the school. It was a five-storey tower mill with patent sails, used to drive three pairs of stones in some sale particulars and two pairs in other notices. A bake office was operating on the premises by 1829, and later descriptions show the mill as part of a wider working property with a dwelling house, garden, stable, piggeries, granary, cart lodge, cottages and land.

The mill appears on Bryant's map of 1826 and Greenwood's map of 1834. In May 1829 it was advertised to let as a good tower mill in full trade with five floors, a baking office, dwelling house and other offices. The 1839 tithe map and 1841 tithe award recorded the mill and buildings, with James Brooke named as owner and occupier. In 1846 the property was advertised for sale by auction and described as a tower windmill with five floors and three pairs of stones, together with a dwelling house, cottage, barn, stables, granary, shop, garden and yard.

The mill continued in active use through the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Titus Gathercole was associated with the site in the early 1850s, and the Dunger family became prominent later. In 1859 the windmill was advertised to let at Michaelmas as a mill in capital repair, with four new patent sails, a bake office and ten acres of land, then occupied by Thomas Dungar. In 1868 an advertisement described an excellent tower windmill with patent sails driving three pairs of stones, a residence, bake office, miller's cottage, spacious granaries, stables and outbuildings. Another notice that year recorded the dissolution of the partnership between Robert Cobbin and Martin Dunger, with Martin Dunger continuing the business.

The mill was advertised for sale for £1,000 in 1873 as a freehold estate of between ten and eleven acres, with a brick tower windmill, patent sails, two pairs of French stones and a flour mill. It continued to appear in letting notices in the early 1880s. Kelly's directory and other records list a succession of millers during the later nineteenth century, but by the early twentieth century the working windmill had effectively disappeared. Notes recorded by Harry Apling from Mrs Cobbin state that when she first saw the mill in the early 1900s it was already partly demolished and the sails had gone. No later conversion or restoration was identified in the consulted sources.