Dobson's Windmill, Burgh-le-Marsh

Image: © Jo and Steve Turner Taken: 17 Apr 2011

Grade I Listed windmill. 1813 by Oxleys of Alford, restored 1947. It was built for the Jessop family, who baked bread on the same site. The build date is suggested by a number of sources as 1813, 1833 and 1844. The only original source is a Monson estate survey which shows a tower mill on the site in 1810 with four sails. In 1855, described as 'newly built', would tie in with a build of 1809/10 and rebuild in 1844. The mill may well have become five sailed at this time. It is unusual in that they turned clockwise, driving three sets of millstones in an anti-clockwise direction. There is a blocked opening on the ground floor where a steam traction engine once powered an extra set of millstones. A safe is built into the wall with a slit in the top for customers who had grain milled to drop money in. The safe had two locks on the door. The key to one lock was held by the owner and the key to the second lock by the miller. They both had to be present to remove the money. Dobson was the name of the last miller who operated it commercially until 1964 or 5. It was purchased by the Local Council in 1974 and refurbished, including the installation of a new cap and sails, in 2014. On 9 February 2020 the cap and sails were destroyed by winds from Storm Ciara. The wind had been so strong it snapped the wooden sleepers used to hold the mechanism in place to stop the 20 tonne sails spinning.

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