WINDMILLS were once a common site in Suffolk with hundreds in the county turning wheat crops into flour.

David Kindred

WINDMILLS were once a common site in Suffolk with hundreds in the county turning wheat crops into flour.

There were several within the Ipswich borough boundary including the top of Woodbridge Road Hill, Henley Road near the junction with Dale Hall Lane, Belstead Road over the rail tunnel and Tower Mill Road.

I recently featured a photograph of the road at Shotley with the remains of a tower mill in the background. Mark Grimwade said: “I live at the adjoining Old Mill House, and have done for the past 28 years.

The old mill's foundations are still there and all the mill sheds remain. Our predecessor here, the late Mr Tommy King, told me that his father ran a radio and cycle repair business from the sheds and I still find spokes and radio valves in corners!

“The mill and house were part of the Berners Estate and Mr King told me that when the mill was finally demolished in the 1930s, the rubble was carted to HMS Ganges where it formed the basis of a slipway.

“He also told me that the sails blew off the mill earlier in the century just after new ones had been fitted. They were never replaced, but a steam engine was installed in their place sadly now also long gone.”