All the names of Norfolk watermills in the lists below have a direct link to a separate page many of which contain at least one photograph.

At the time of Domesday, in the 11th century, there were some 580 recorded watermills in Norfolk, but no windmills.

By the 19th century only 80 or 90 watermills were still functioning but there were still 300 - 400 windmills in the county. By the late 1800s the water and windmilled stone ground flour was fast giving way to roller mill produced flour. The taste of the people was changing and the new technology was capable of producing flour far more efficiently and faster.

In 1939 Claude Messent recorded that there were only 60 watermills still standing and by 2004 the number had gone down to 52 with only around 20 still containing any remnants of machinery and many have now disappeared completely. Forever.

Watermills operating at the time of Domesday were mostly very small, some set over small streams and only capable of working during times of winter rain. Small mills of this type were almost certainly constructed entirely of wood and used a horizontal wheel to power a single set of stones set directly above. Mills of this type have survived the centuries in the Shetland Isles.
Early horizontal wheels were eventually superceded by larger undershot wheels with a horizontal geared axle.
These in turn were often replaced by more efficient breastshot wheels. Unusually the wheel sluices of Letheringsett_mill were designed and built with a dual irrigation system whereby it normally ran as breastshot but could be changed to undershot if water levels fell in times of dry weather.
Overshot wheels are comparatively rare in Norfolk due to the mainly gentle terrain, thus the less efficient breast or undershot wheels were mainly used. The only mills to use overshot wheels that I have found so far were at Buxton (one of the two wheels) Foulden, Hingham, Mundesley, Tharston and Weybourne.

Sadly over the future years, in many water mill, I would be involved with removing the mill stones and installing modern hammer mills. These involved high speeds and it was impossible to gear the water wheels up to this speed (3,000rpm). So, we installed diesel engines and later electric motors to drive them leaving the water wheel to drive the hoist, oat crusher, maize cutter and other machinery. The introduction of roller mills for producing flour, the cost of dressing mill stones, heavy maintenance, lack of demand for stone ground flour and only small amounts of meal for animal feed saw the end of most of the water mills. In Norfolk only one water mill remains working today as it did years ago, it is at Letheringsett near Holt. It is well worth a visit and you can even buy stone ground flour there which is produced at the mill. As for the others, they were knocked down, burnt down or turned into flats, this was their fate. In the Domesday Book (1086) there were 500 water mills listed in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Peter Gowing, retired millwright, F. Flowerdew & Son, NIAS Journal -
5th December 2008

Bacton Wood
Barnham Broom
Bawburgh
Bintry
Blickling
Bolwick (Marsham)
Brandiston
Bridgham Town
Bridgham West
Briggate
Brockdish
Buckenham Tofts
Bungay
Burgh
Burnham Overy lower
Burnham Overy Union
Buxton

Fakenham
Felmingham
Felthorpe
Feltwell
Flitcham
Flordon
Foulden

Oxborough
Oxnead

Wainford
Wereham
West Acre
West Newton
Weybourne
Weybread
Wicklewood
Wighton
Wood Dalling
Wormegay
Worthing
Wortwell
Wramplingham