History
The current mill at this location was built somewhere between 1800 and 1825 under the name 'Freethorpe Mill', it is four stories high and built of red brick tarred black. The structure stands at 35 feet to the curb and the diameter of the base is 24 feet, housing two doors and 4 windows. A farm once stood next to the mill, it was known as Lockgate Farm and was demolished in 1981 after many years of being derelict.
When operational, the mill was driven by four patent sails that turned in a clockwise direction, these drove a 19 ft diameter external scoopwheel with 7 inch paddles. Unusually for a mill on the halvergate marshes it didn't drain into the Halvergate Fleet even though it is only 800 yards from the connection of the fleet with Breydon water. Instead it drained Acle marshes that lie to the north of the mill.
The earliest recorded marshman of the mill was a Mr Dan Banham, followed subsequently by Mr Bob Banham. The Banham family ceased working the mill in the early 1920s and was taken over for a short period by Mr Gordon Addison, who lived in the nearby Lockgate Farm. The final marshman that worked the mill was Mr Leonard Carter, who left the mill in the mid-1940s.
After Leonard Carter left the mill, it began to fall into disrepair. In 1953 the sails were blown off the mill in a gale and was left to deteriorate until a temporary aluminium cap was fitted in 1988 to protect the remains of the mill.
Read more about this topic: Lockgate Mill
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)