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Drainage tower mill built
The four-storey red-brick drainage tower mill was built beside the River Bure at Stokesby.
Site overview
Stokesby Commission Mill is a former drainage tower mill beside the River Bure at Stokesby in Norfolk. The mill had a medium-sized four-storey red-brick tower and used double-shuttered patent sails to drive a scoop wheel. It stood near a thatched cottage in the river marsh landscape and formed part of the Bure-side drainage system.
Historic photographs show the mill in the twentieth century, including views from about 1929 and later images in 1973, 2008 and 2020. The mill is Grade II listed and was later converted, preserving the tower as a visible survival of Stokesby's drainage-mill landscape.
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
Stokesby Commission Mill stood beside the River Bure at Stokesby and worked as a wind-powered drainage mill. It had a medium-sized four-storey red-brick tower and was fitted with double-shuttered patent sails. These powered a scoop wheel, which pumped water as part of the marshland drainage system.
The mill was closely associated with the riverside drainage landscape. A thatched cottage stood nearby, and historic photographs show the mill within its open riverside setting. The 1905 Ordnance Survey map marked the drainage-mill site, preserving its role as part of the engineered water-management network of the Bure marshes. Photographic records from about 1929 and from later twentieth-century and twenty-first-century dates show the tower's survival after the end of wind-powered pumping.
Stokesby Commission Mill was later converted, but the tower remains standing. The building is Grade II listed and survives as one of the preserved drainage windmill structures of the Norfolk Broads. It should be distinguished from other nearby Stokesby and Herringby mill sites, including the separate tower corn mill at Stokesby with Herringby.
Timeline
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Scoop-wheel drainage
Double-shuttered patent sails powered a scoop wheel for marshland drainage.
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Listed building designation
Stokesby Commission Mill is protected as a Grade II listed building.
1905
Drainage mill mapped
The 1905 Ordnance Survey map marked the drainage mill at Stokesby.
1929
Mill photographed
Photographic records show the drainage mill beside the River Bure in about 1929.
1980–1989
Converted after pumping use
The former drainage mill was converted after the end of wind-powered pumping.
2008
Converted tower recorded
The converted tower was photographed standing beside the River Bure.
Sources and records
Norfolk Mills entry: Stokesby Commission drainage windmill
Windmill World entry: Commission Mill, Stokesby
Mills Archive record: Commission Mill, Stokesby
Geograph photograph: Stokesby Commission Mill
Norfolk Heritage Explorer drainage-mill record
Windmill World entry: Commission Mill, Stokesby
Mills Archive record: Commission Mill, Stokesby
Geograph photograph: Stokesby Commission Mill
Norfolk Heritage Explorer drainage-mill record