It was once one of the biggest watermills in Norfolk, grinding corn into flour and producing cloth.
But 60 years ago - on January 23, 1963 - Horstead Mill was devastated by fire, ending hundreds of years of production.
The current remains of the two mills at Horstead date back to 1789, but the Doomsday Book of 1086 recorded that there were once three mills, and a further two mills at Stanningham.
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In Doomsday, the mills at Horstead were said to belong to the Benedictine Priory at St Benet’s Abbey in Horning.
When King Henry VIII began his dissolution of the monasteries in England in the late 1530s, he presented Horstead Mill to King’s College Cambridge.
Ownership would remain with King’s College until 1910, when it was bought by R J Read.
Of the two mills, the grist mill was used to make flour and the fulling mill produced cloth.
Flour production ended at the mill at the end of the First World War (1918), but the mill continued making animal feed using its millstones until 1960, when modern machinery was installed.
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In 1963, Horstead watermill, which was the last remaining watermill on the River Bure, was burnt down by an accidental fire.
“We know very little about the fire,” Jonathan Neville, who grew up on Itteringham Mill and has studied the history of more than 1,200 mills across the county on his Norfolk Mills website, said.
“Mills have a habit of catching fire and burning down because the dust of flour is highly explosive and can ignite from a single spark.
“Early mills, including Horstead, were made of wood, so it wouldn't take much for them to burn down.”
A Horstead Mill restoration project has been carried out by Horstead-with-Stanninghall and Coltishall Parish Councils and other partners, charities and members of the local community.
For more information about the heritage and history of Norfolk’s mills, visit the Norfolk Mills website.
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