Little Barningham watermill was part of the Coldham Hall Manor Estate and was apparently thriving in early medieval times and the mill dam earthwork was reported as still being visible during the 1800s. The mill was burnt down in 1312 during an attack on Coldham Hall Manor and disappeared during the medieval era before being subsequently absorbed into the Mannington estate.

The 1595 estate map within the Mannington and Wolterton archive marked The Lowes as the Scite of the manor of Couldham.

Dam remains as bank of earth 2.5m high running right across valley with stream passing through centre. However the Bolingbroke Archive insists this is the moated site of a house destroyed in an attack before Mannington was built. He says there is documentary evidence for this. On the ground at least, there is no evidence at all for this, though the dam might conceivably have held back a defensive lake. Earthworks in field to south probably drainage ditches.
E. Rose - 11th May 1978

However the earthworks to southwest of dam, described as drainage above, consist of near rectangular banked enclosure, straddling the present watercourse and cut by it. Approximately 30m extent along valley, with banks 0.4m high and the east side obliterated by the present hedge/ditch. Another watercourse on higher land to west bounded by banks with one pit-like depression within, and larger one to north. A causeway leads from this enclosure across the valley floor. A post medieval brick culvert over the stream was demolished since Second World War.
B. Cushion, Norfolk Landscape Archaeology - February 1993