1798
Post mill first mentioned
Great Massingham post mill is recorded with a first mention in 1798.
Site overview
Great Massingham post mill was a corn mill recorded from the late eighteenth century and shown on nineteenth-century mapping. It was marked on the 1824 Ordnance Survey material and appears in windmill lists with a first mention in 1798. An 1844 sale notice advertised a post windmill and cottages at Great Massingham for auction at the Swan Inn.
The mill remained part of the Great Massingham windmill record into the twentieth century. Later summary evidence states that it was destroyed by fire around 1916. The available sources do not provide a full machinery inventory or surviving structural description for the site, so the record is best treated as the former site of a post mill rather than as surviving fabric.
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
Great Massingham post mill was part of the village's wind-powered corn-milling history. The mill is recorded in county windmill lists as a post mill first mentioned in 1798 and shown on Ordnance Survey material in 1824. In 1844 a post windmill and cottages at Great Massingham were advertised for sale by auction at the Swan Inn, Great Massingham.
The sale evidence places the mill within a village property context, but the identified sources do not provide a detailed inventory of sails, stones, roundhouse, or associated machinery. Later summary evidence records the mill as having burnt down around 1916. No surviving standing structure has been identified for the site in the searched material.
The documentary record therefore establishes the site, mill type, nineteenth-century sale notice, and destruction by fire, while leaving the detailed operational sequence and later physical treatment uncertain.
Timeline
1824
Post mill mapped
The post mill was shown on Ordnance Survey material.
1844
Post mill and cottages advertised
A post windmill and cottages at Great Massingham were advertised for auction at the Swan Inn.
1916
Post mill burnt down
The post mill was destroyed by fire around 1916.
Sources and records
Norfolk Mills page: Great Massingham post windmill
WindmillWorld county list: Windmills of Norfolk
List of windmills in Norfolk
WindmillWorld county list: Windmills of Norfolk
List of windmills in Norfolk