Collis Mill is a Grade II* listed smock mill

Smock mill

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 at Great Thurlow

Great Thurlow

Great Thurlow is a village and civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk in eastern England. Situated around three miles north of Haverhill, in 2005 its population was 980....

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 which has been restored.

History

Collis Mill was originally built at Slough

Slough

Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...

 (then in Berkshire

Berkshire

Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

). It was moved to Great Thurlow in 1807 replacing an earlier post mill

Post mill

The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. The defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. The earliest post mills in England are thought to have...

. Thomas Hunt, the Soham

Soham

Soham is a small town in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It lies just off the A142 between Ely and Newmarket . Its population is 9,102 , and it is within the district of East Cambridgeshire.-Archaeology:...

 millwright

Millwright

A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...

, carried out repairs to the mill in 1914. It ceased working by wind in 1915 and the sails were removed from 1920. The mill was worked by a portable steam engine until 1937. The derelict mill was capless in 1959 when she came was purchased by R A Vestey for restoration as a visual amenity. Restoration was completed in 1962.

Description

Collis Mill is a three storey smock mill on a single storey brick base. It has four Common sails and the pepperpot cap is winded by a fantail. It has two pairs of underdrift millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s.

Millers

• Thomas Gardner 1841-44
• Joseph Dearsley 1845-50
• Elijah Dearsley 1850-75
• Archibald Robinson 1875-
• Gabriel Savage
• Joseph Collis -1937

Reference for above:-

External links

• Windmill World webpage on Collis Mill.