This clever arrangement manage to incorporate the idea of both the water for the watermill and the sails for a windmill.  

Courtesy of Tony Stokes

The Watermill

Location: By the River Blackbourne.

Description: Grade II. An eighteenth century farmhouse, with a sixteenth and seventeenth century barn. The watermill itself is nineteenth century and has had most of the machinery removed although the waterwheel is still visible.
    
History:
A watermill is recorded at Bardwell in the Domesday Book, when the Abbot of Bury had two parts of it, and someone else had the remainder. The next mention of this mill is in 1204, when Walter de Sapeston bought it from Philip the Monk for two marks, and let it to William de Horningsheath and his heirs for 6d a year and two marks down, payable at the Feast of St. Edmund. This was followed in 1212-13 by a claim by Walter's widow, Sarra, for money awed to her as a dower.     This mill may or may not have been upon the site of the present one.

The Extent of the manor of Wykes, dating from about 1300, lists as one of the freeholders John Molendinarius, as miller, and it seems likely that his mill is the watermill, as this stands within the manor of Wykes. Further references are elusive and can only be inferred. William Craske, who was a miller from about 1630 until his death in 1660, can be cautiously identified as being at the watermill.
    
In 1819, James Cooke was in possession of the water mill and land and barns, which he had purchased from the Earl of Albermarle, who was at the time Lord of the manor of Wykes.

The Tithe Apportionments of 1839 show Pearson Sharman as the owner of the mill, and George Reach as the occupier.

Recorded Dates of Occupiers after 1839.
1841 & 1844: George Reach
1851 & 1855: Robert Beard
1865 & 1869: Walter Lingwood    
1874 & 1879: Henry Cooke, farmer and corn miller also at Bury St Edmunds
1883 - 1896: David William Taylor farmer, horse and        cattle condiment maker, miller – water and steam.
1900 – 1925 John Henry Ransom and Hector Ransome
1929 - 1937 Powell Bros.

When the mill stopped milling it was stripped of its machinery becoming purely Mill Farm and was owned for many years by Suffolk County Council. In the latter part of the 19th century when the tenant farmer retired, the mill, the farmhouse, and barn were sold into private ownership.

The Windmill

Courtesy of Tony Stokes

Location:  School Road, previous know as Mill Lane.

Description: Grade II tower mill built in 1829, four storey red brick tower.
    
History:
This building was probably built by Thomas King of Thelnetham using parts from a dismantled 1823 mill from Ixworth. It replaced the 18th century post mill sited near the top of Knox Lane.

It was put up for sale by auction in 1847, when it was described as follows:
    “A valuable tower windmill, erected in the most substantial manner, and possessing machinery of the best description. It contains four floors, two pairs of French stones, flour mill, sack tackle, etc. Also a neat slated house, cow-house, piggeries, etc, and four acres, more or less, of superior arable land.”  

From the 1860’s steam was also used to power the mill, so that by 1925 it had stopped working by wind altogether; eventually milling ceased in the 1940’s.

In 1985/6 the mill was again milling flour having been renovated by the previous owner James Waterfield.

In July 1987 Enid and Geoffrey Wheeler bought the Mill and continued milling flour until the windmill was partly destroyed in the Great Storm on the 15th October 1987. In 1989 The Wheeler family started work to restore the damaged mill which proved to be very difficult on limited funds. Work eventually stopped when Geoffrey Wheeler was taken ill; he died in 1995. In 1997 a committee, consisting of local villagers, called 'The Friends of Bardwell Windmill' was set up, with a constitution, to raise funds. English Heritage and St.Edmundsbury Council were approached and both promised grant aid. The total needed for completion was projected in 2000 to be £92,000. English Heritage agreed to give £63,616 and St. Edmundsbury Council £10,000 with the balance raised by the Friends. This money enabled a new cap and fantail to be fitted in the spring of 2004. Fundraising continues to replace the sails.

Recorded Dates of Millers as Occupiers.
1839 – 1861: John Addison
1865 – 1869:  Henry Cattermole
1879 - 1896:  Charles Harrison
1900 – 1922:  Mrs Mary Harrison
1925 – 1937:  Charles Alfred Alderto

Read the Bardwell Windmill page on BardwellVillage.info.