Lelley Windmill

Lelley Windmill

A corn windmill of tower type, built in 1790 for Peter Sumper (Miller) and later raised in height to six stories. The structure is a tarred red brick tower of battered circular plan with a wide splayed base, situated to the east of Lelley village. It retains its timber sheer beam frame, wind shaft, floors and much of its machinery.

The six-storey exterior has window openings to all floors. The ground floor forms a wide splayed base with two timber multi-paned Yorkshire-sash sliding windows, a blocked doorway on the southern side, and a timber stable door facing north. The first floor has two window openings, with an iron drive shaft and pulley wheel projecting from the eastern side. Putt holes for the insertion of beams that would have supported the luffing gallery (a timber gallery on the outside of the mill from which the miller controlled the sails) are exposed at the second-floor level and visible around the circumference. The second storey has gallery doorways facing west and east, and window openings facing north and south. The third storey has a window opening aligned on each of the cardinal points. The fourth and fifth storeys each have two single window openings facing east and west. All doors and window openings have segmental brick arches. The top of the tower is delineated by two projecting brick bands, with a cap ring above upon which the remains of the cap frame, cast-iron wind shaft, Lincolnshire cross and neck bearing rest. The cap, sails and fan tail are missing.

The interior is extensively fitted with milling machinery. The ground floor contains one pair of millstones complete with tun, hopper, horse, shoe and damsel designed to receive a belt drive from a vertical iron shaft. The first floor (meal-floor) has a vertical iron shaft with bevel gears connected to a horizontal shaft passing through the eastern wall, with pulleys driving a flour dressing machine and other equipment. The second floor (stone-floor) houses a pair of millstones complete with tun, hopper, horse, shoe and damsel, together with two sets of tentering gears and a governor. The third floor (stone-floor) contains two pairs of millstones, all complete with tuns, hoppers, horses, shoes and quants with iron-mortise stone nuts. One millstone bears a maker's plate for Robert Nutt, a local millstone supplier. The iron upright shaft carries a clasp-arm wooden great spur wheel with iron teeth. The fourth floor (bin-floor) is occupied by timber grain bins and the main upright and vertical drive shafts. The fifth floor (dust-floor) has the upright shaft with a cast-iron wallower, a sack hoist friction-driven and controlled from below, a vertical shaft and a grain cleaner. Sack hoist trap doors are present in the fifth floor and further trap doors are found in all floors below. Some of the internal structural timbers have been re-used and exhibit joint holes believed to be indicative of common sail timbers of the type used in 18th-century post mills.

A brick-built steam-engine room annexe of sub-rectangular plan with fragmentary brick walling is attached to the southern side of the base. A brick-built chimney stands within the annexe, approximately 6.6 metres to the south-west of the mill. It has a square-plan pedestal aligned on the cardinal points, rising to a third of the height of the chimney, above which an architrave of three courses of projecting brickwork forms the base of a tapered round section. The tapered section rises to a projecting architrave with a raised flue cap. A mid-to-late 19th-century vertical steam boiler made of riveted boiler-plate stands at the base on the northern side of the chimney.