Creeting St Mary Windmill
Encyclopedia
Creeting St Mary Windmill is a Grade II listed dovecote
at Creeting St Mary
, Suffolk
, England
which has been restored. It was originally the body of a post mill
which stood elsewhere in the village.
at Kersey
when the mill was dismantled. It served for many years as a dovecote. It is the only such example of a reused windmill buck remaining in the country. The building was derelict by the late 1970s but was restored in 1995, and moved to a new position on the farm, converted to a craft workshop. The buck retains all its original framing.
Dovecote
A dovecote or dovecot is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be square or circular free-standing structures or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pigeonholes for the birds to nest. Pigeons and doves were an important food source historically in...
at Creeting St Mary
Creeting St Mary
Creeting St Mary is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Sandwiched between the A14 and A140 to the north of Needham Market, the parish also includes the hamlet of Creeting Bottoms. In 2005 its population was 710. The buck of a windmill survives in...
, 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. It was originally the body of a 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...
which stood elsewhere in the village.
History
Creeting St Mary windmill was built in 1796 at . The mill was dismantled c1860, and the body was moved to the grounds of the medieval hall known as Houghton Park Farm, now The Old Hall. The Mill was part of the complex of outbuildings, which later became Alder Carr Farm. The mill had Patent sails, which were transferred to a tower millTower mill
A tower mill is a type of windmill which consists of a brick or stone tower, on top of which sits a roof or cap which can be turned to bring the sails into the wind....
at Kersey
Kersey, Suffolk
Kersey is a village and a civil parish in the Babergh district in Suffolk, in the east of England. The main street has a ford across a stream. Its principal claim to fame is that a coarse woollen cloth called Kersey cloth takes its name from it...
when the mill was dismantled. It served for many years as a dovecote. It is the only such example of a reused windmill buck remaining in the country. The building was derelict by the late 1970s but was restored in 1995, and moved to a new position on the farm, converted to a craft workshop. The buck retains all its original framing.