Tharston mills

It is known that there have been three mills in Tharston; a water mill, a tower mill and a postmill. The Norfolk Mills website is an excellent source of information with the links below:

There are many details of the Tharston mills in the website named above - including mill details, millers, sales, bankruptcy, wills and a chronology of events in the mills' lives.

The picture below has been given to the THS but we know very little about it. It is assumed that it is of the tower mill and the boy is tending turkeys.
Tharston tower mill in background
Tharston tower mill in background

Anyone with any information on this photo or has any other photographs or pictures relating to Tharston mills please make Contact.

Tharston Tower Mill - 1935
Tharston Tower Mill - 1935

The tower mill, probably the same one as above it - [Photograph from the University of Kent's Information Services - Special Collections. This material is made available for education use and may not be used for any commercial use without prior agreement. By using this material you are agreeing to the terms of use (PDF) offered by the University of Kent.]

The picture below is one that the current occupants of the Mill House have in their possession, the date is unknown.

Tharston watermill - date unknown
Tharston watermill - date unknown

... and this is what it is like today :

Tharston water mill - 2016
Tharston water mill - 2016
Tharston watermill - 2015
Tharston watermill - 2015

From the 1841 to 1911 Census Returns we can get the names of the millers and their families who occupied the Tharston Water Mill which is transcribed to a MS Word document.

The fourth mill - Paul Cattermole, in his history of Tharston, states:

Grain grown in the village needed to be ground into flour; and Domesday refers to a mill in Tharston, doubtless a water-mill on the site of the existing mill. At various times there have been at least three windmills in the parish: one near the water-mill, another in the loke joining Long Lane (formerly Haycroft Lane) and the Low Tharston road, and a third at Highfields.

So we are missing a windmill! However, a recent conversation has revealed that there may have been a windmill somewhere near The Plump - still investigating ...