Bradwell
postmill



Painting of mill - c.1890
Painting of mill - c.1890

Bradwell post mill was in Suffolk when it was working. However the parish is in Norfolk now, so I have included it within this archive.The mill stood in a yard on the west side of the A143 Beccles Road, half a mile east northeast of the church.

The mill had a 2 storey buck set over a 2 storey roundhouse. The buck had a gallery set at eaves level, an ornamental porch and a six bladed fantail set on the ladder. Power was supplied by four double shuttered patent sails.

Ipswich Journal - 27th August 1842
Ipswich Journal - 27th August 1842

Roundhouse - 16th August 1962
Roundhouse - 16th August 1962

It was the genial Charlie Hadingham who first introduced me to the fact that the mill roundhouse still survived at the rear of the Bungalow Shop, of which he was the proprietor. Indeed, at the time (1962) he offered it to me, as long as I could take it away! In many ways it was a conventional post mill with four anticlockwise canister-mounted double-shuttered patent sails, a two-storey buck and a six bladed fan mounted above the steps. In addition, there was fine ornamental porch and, unusually, a wooden gallery at eaves level. The mill is marked on a map of 17636 and was still standing in 1903, having lost its sails in 1895. The last miller was Sidney Disney. By 1962 the tarred two-storey red-brick roundhouse was in use as a store for the shop but it disappeared any years ago. Two elderly ladies, living in the mill house at that time, loaned me the painting which I have copied.
Barry Davis - 12th April 2012


O. S. Map 1883
O. S. Map 1883
Courtesy of NLS map images

O. S. Map 1904
O. S. Map 1904
Courtesy of NLS map images

Map 1736: Windmill

Pigot's 1830: Geo. Botwright, miller, Bradwell, near Gorleston

1842: Robert Hilder, tenant miller

August 1842: Mill advertised for sale by auction

Kelly's 1854: Stephen Clarke, miller

O.S. map 1883: Windmill (Corn)

1895: Sidney Disney, miller

1895: Mill lost its sails

1903: Mill still standing

O.S. map 1904: Windmill

O. S. map 1926: Old Windmill

1962: Charlie Hadingham, site owner, running a shop in a bungalow with the mill roundhouse behind

1962: Black tarred roundhouse with a conical pointed roof, worse for wear being used as a store


If you have any memories, anecdotes or photos please let us know and we may be able to use them to update the site. By all means telephone 07836 675369 or

Nat Grid Ref TG510041
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Copyright © Jonathan Neville 2012