Mendham Mill was built in 1820 of weatherboard with a pantiled roof. The adjoining mill house did not appear to line up with the mill's window configuration, which was quite unusual. The wheel was believed to have been the largest of all the mills in the Waveney valley.

The mill ceased production in 1938 and was eventually turned into a showpiece residence and by 2000 the building had been Grade ll listed.

A new iron waterwheel was installed in 1861 having been cast at Harleston Foundry, the original one having at one time driven 9 pairs of stones.

At one point a 25hp compound Holmes & Sons steam engine was used.

A 3 sack/hour roller plant was installed in 1905.

Flour was taken by cart to Bungay where it was loaded onto wherries bound for Yarmouth.

Joseph Stammers was the miller in 1861, he was also a farmer owning 260 acres and employing 10 men. His daughter Rosa married Thomas Pratt, a well known Harleston Solicitor and they lived at The Beeches in London Road. In 1881 Rosa's mother, Harriett, then a widow lived with her son in law and daughter. 

The artist Alfred Munnings, son of the miller was born in the Mill House in 1878 and was brought up in the village.

On 22nd November 2002 the Eastern Daily Press reported that the mill was on the market for £1.2 million.

Race far away from the daily grind

Equestrian and war artist Sir Alfred Munnings was born at Mendham Watermill, Norfolk, in 1878 and drew inspiration from the setting for many of his early paintings. The present building, surrounded by the water meadows of the Waveney valley, dates from 1807, although a mill is recorded on this site in the Domesday Book.

The mill is split into four parts. The casually elegant main home is over the top two floors in the centre of the building, with fabulous views. The first floor includes a sitting room, large drawing room and dining room, all with panelled walls and elm flooring. Upstairs there are four bedrooms and two bathrooms, one en suite.

Munnings' family lived in the Miller's House on the eastern end of the mill, which is now run as one of four possible holiday lets attached to the property. This has four bedrooms, a sitting room and two shower rooms.

The Mill Race Cottage, with two bedrooms, is at the other end of the building, and the one-bedroom Miller's Nest is on the ground floor of the main mill. A holiday let - the detached Miller's Lodge - has french doors opening from the sitting room on to a terrace and walled garden.

Anyone who fancies embellishing the Munnings theme by reintroducing horses could fence off some of the seven acres that come with the property to form paddocks.

In 1938 the mill sold for £1,600. Agents Jackson-Stops & Staff (01473 218218) is now asking for £1.2 million.
Jill Insley - The Observer - Sunday 26th October 2003

I lived in Mendham Mill in 1953 when I was six years old.

My Mother worked as a cook for Brigadier Scott and Mrs Scott who owned the Mill (I presumed) and farmed in the area.

We had moved from London after my Mother’s previous employer, a doctor, was one of the 4000 people who had died in the 1952 December smog.

Obviously, moving from Knightsbridge (alright Brompton!) literally just round the corner from Harrods, to Mendham with one shop was a bit of a change, but for a young boy playing games undetected alongside the river Waveney was preferable to the Serpentine, where even in those days, some busybody was telling you to go and play somewhere else.

I must admit that 51 years later I remember the dogs of the mill better than the people who worked or lived there.

The Brigadier had a black labrador gun dog called Sailor, the was spaniel called Prue. Mrs Scott had a nasty black poodle - Lady and my favourite was Jess a greyhound.

David Halliwell or I would hold her back while the other would run up the lane from the mill to the house by the stream where he lived and then gasp as she shot off when set free.

There were two families on the farm; the Halliwell’s and the Seamen’s. David, Jennifer Seamen and I were in the same class at school.

If you want a picture of them and the others in our class of nine!–go to Friends Reunited - Mendham School and look at the photograph.

The farm was a mixed farm with cattle, pigs, and poultry and, at Christmas, geese.

I collected eggs from the battery houses to the right and opposite the mill; I helped feed the dozens of cats who lived under the sheds. The area under the mill was where the poultry and the geese were killed and had their feathers stripped. It was busy at Christmas with extra ladies from the village taken on to help.

There was a large electrically powered watermill that could on the press of a button be sent into reverse.  This created a counter flow to the water flowing through the mill (as you know the main current goes past the boathouse and round the mill) and drove the accumulated debris that blocked the grating under the road back upstream.  The debris was then pulled onto the bank.  This did two things, it stopped a build up of water level in front of the mill and reduced the risk of bits of wood and flotsam getting into the waterworks -so to speak.
We lived in the part of the mill facing up the lane.

I was passing Mendham, coming back from holiday with my family a few years ago and dropped by. Luckily the new owners were there and invited me in to have a look around.

The watermill that shook the place when running was rusted away, and the stone steps that ran up to the kitchen from the walled garden had gone.

The chicken houses were I think a holiday home! I wonder if the residents know!

It was obviously in need of renovation, but although it seemed smaller than when I was a lad I wasn’t sorry I had gone back, so often fond memories are trick of the mind and you are disappointed… but no so with Mendham Mill

I had no idea then that Alfred Munnings had been born there and I do not recall it ever being mentioned.

My Mother had Saturdays off and we would go into Harleston to the pictures.

I was in Harleston with a friend from my office (who had holidays there with his Grandparents) en route to a meeting a few years ago. We stopped for a quick look around and called in at the ‘museum’ I asked where the cinema was-or used to be. Can you believe neither of the two worthies there knew!?

Perhaps it just dates me.

I said we moved to Mendham following the death of my Mother’s previous employer.

Unfortunately, we had to move again when Brigadier Scott developed cancer and died.

I have real affection for Mendham Mill.
Tom Sedman-Smith, Kidderminster - 17th March 2005

Charlotte, my wife, remembered her step-father telling her that Grace Philcox, from whom he bought the mill, had run off with her chauffeur. Apparently he paid £14,000 for it and, given the amount of money that she spent refurbishing it, was a bargain. Charlotte thinks that he sold it for £18,000, four years later.

My wife’s mother was Jane Carr, star of stage, screen and radio. Robert Stent, who she married in 1955, was MD of Trust House Hotels. Shortly before the wedding Jane was diagnosed with a terminal illness and Robert bought the mill as a weekend and holiday home. My wife loved spending time there and she and her best friend, Nina Campbell, now the celebrity interior designer, painted the punt red and white. I noticed in Sir Alfred Munnings’ book, that he writes about the one that he and his brother used.

Many of Jane’s show-biz friends spent time there, although we can only find one picture of Michael Denison and Dulci Grey. Jane had sponsored their application to study at the Central School of Language and Drama, and they in turn, ten years later did the same for Charlotte.

As I also mentioned, Jane died in London in 1957, but had insisted on being buried at Mendham. For some reason, best known to himself, Robert Stent had the grave identified by a marker, rather than a gravestone. Maybe, as Charlotte thinks, that was why he was so wealthy.

Jane Carr died in September 1957 after a two year illness.

Apparently there used to be a paper mill in the village on the left side of the bridge near the church but no trace has so far been found.

1820: Mill rebuilt

Pigot's 1839: Christopher Johnson

1861: New iron wheel installed

Census 1861: Joseph Stammers (37) b.Starston, miller & farmer of 260 acres employing 10 men

1872: John Munnings took over the mill

1878: Sir Alfred Munnings born in the mill house

1905: 3 sack/hour roller plant installed

1938: Mill ceased production

1938: Mill sold for £1,600

2002: Mill on the market for £1.2 million

2004: Mill and cottages used for residential and holiday accommodation

April 2006: Mill with 2 cottages and 7 acres advertised for sale by Strutt & Parker c.£1,500,000