Eastbridge Windpump is a smock mill

Smock mill

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 at the Museum of East Anglian Life

Museum of East Anglian Life

The Museum of East Anglian Life is a Museum located in Stowmarket Suffolk, it specialises in presenting the agricultural history of East Anglia through a mixture of exhibits and living history demonstrations. It has recently taken to abbreviating itself as 'MEAL'.-History of the Museum:The site of...

, Stowmarket

Stowmarket

-See also:* Stowmarket Town F.C.* Stowmarket High School-External links:* * * * *...

, 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 to working order.

History

Eastbridge Windpump was probably built in the mid nineteenth century by Robert Martin, the Beccles

Beccles

Beccles is a market town and civil parish in the Waveney District of the English county of Suffolk. The town is shown on the milestone as from London via the A145 Blythburgh and A12 road, northeast of London as the crow flies, southeast of Norwich, and north northeast of the county town of...

 millwright

Millwright

A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...

 It originally stood at Minsmere Level

Minsmere

Minsmere is a hamlet on the Suffolk coast a couple of miles south of Dunwich, within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB.Ranulf de Glanvill built an abbey on the marshes here in the 12th century, but this was abandoned in favour of Leiston Abbey in 1363...

, Eastbridge

Eastbridge

Eastbridge is a village in Suffolk, England. It is located approximately five miles east northeast of Saxmundham. The village is two miles from the North Sea....

, Leiston

Leiston

Leiston is a town in eastern Suffolk, England. It is situated near Saxmundham and Aldeburgh, about from the North Sea coast and is northeast of Ipswich and northeast from London...

 . In the early 1920s, millwright Dan England of Ludham

Ludham

Ludham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, in The Broads, at the end of a dyke leading to Womack Water and flowing into the River Thurne...

 reinforced the mill by bolting the frame from a nearby smock mill , which had collapsed, over the weatherboarding. It worked by wind until 1940. After the war, an iron windpump was erected nearby to take over from Eastbridge Windpump. On 19 February 1977, Eastbridge Windpump collapsed. The remains were dismantled by members of Suffolk Mills Group in July 1977 and later incorporated into the rebuilt mill at the Museum of East Anglian Life, Stowmarket. The restoration work was done by Jameson Marshall Ltd.

Description

Eastbridge windpump is a 30 feet (9.14 m) high smock mill on a brick base of a few courses. It has a boat shaped cap and is winded by a fantail. The four Patent sails are carried on a cast iron windshaft. They span 44 feet (13.41 m). The cast iron brake wheel drives a cast iron wallower carried on a cast iron upright shaft. A cast iron crown wheel drives a three-throw plunger pump, which has cylinders 1 feet (305 mm) square.

Public access

Eastbridge Windpump is open to the public and may be viewed externally during normal opening times of the Museum of East Anglian Life.

External links

• Suffolk Mills Group webpage on Eastbridge Windpump.