NHER 4572 (Building record) - West Winch windmill

July 1975. Site visit.
Windmill. Disused tower mill with ruins of wooden cap. New house being built against side.
Seen by E. Rose (NAU), 15 July 1975.

Built 1821. No bread made after late 19th century. Paraffin engines installed 1925. Disused again 1937.
E. Rose (NAU).

The last miller was killed in the mill June 1937. Mr Apling does not elaborate. A cap and one pair of sails have now been restored. The house is a conversion of the granary.
Information from H. Apling.
E. Rose (NAU), 24 March 1982.

John Lawn, millwright and restorer, adds; the mill is very unusual (unique?) in having some of its windows staggered rather than vertically in line. It was built by Dodmans of Lynn and is unusual in being signed. It had an onion cap and very unusually the sheartrees were not parallel. The old granary formerly had a V cut in its roof for the sails to pass through. Upon restoration the owner of the new house neglected this feature until the first time the sails turned....
E. Rose (NAU), 8 February 1985.

1988. Listed Grade II
(S1) notes a large bread oven in the house.

Sails blown off in February 1998, to be replaced later in year.
See (S2) in file which also states that the miller in 1937 was killed by the machinery.
E. Rose (NLA), 17 April 1998.

Press cuttings (S2), (S3), (S4) in file.

Both cap and sails, replaced by John Lawn in 1970s as above, removed in 2004 because of decay.
E. Rose (NLA), 14 July 2004.

According to (S5), sale particulars from 1855 note that a horse mill worked in conjunction with the windmill. The site also included a jumper for cleaning grain, a flour dresser and an additional pair of stones. Over the next ten years the business was enlarged with the addition of a granary, a workshop and a bakery. A steam engine had also been installed by 1861 to drive a fourth pair of stones within the windmill.
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 6 December 2018.