A faded 150-year-old photograph may help to raise the profile of one of Great Yarmouth's least known features - a nine storey mill built by the town's seafront.

A faded 150-year-old photograph may help to raise the profile of one of Great Yarmouth's least known features - a nine storey mill built by the town's seafront.

Taken around 1860 the image is believed to show Yarmouth's South Middle Mill which used to loom over Regent Road and Albion Road areas of town.

The photograph is in stark contrast to modern-day summer scenes down Regent Road, where tens of thousands of trippers buy ice creams, sticks of rocks and beach balls as they stroll down to reach Yarmouth's sandy beach.

Its discovery has excited the Friends of Norfolk Mills as there is very little information about the corn mill, which was part of the Yarmouth Denes 19th century corn mill network and one of the largest in Norfolk.

The grainy photograph was found by Friends member Peter Allard, from Gorleston, as he rummaged through a bundle of old photographs in Yarmouth's Time and Tide Museum.

They had belonged to William Manning Fellows, of Ormesby St Margaret, who died in 1867 aged 70.

In the latest edition of the Friends of Norfolk Mills newsletter Mr Allard from his research says the nine storey mill was built around 1824 on the site of a post mill on open land between Regent Road and Albion Road and had three pairs of stones.

The mill had a cottage, stables, warehouse and a large house for the miller who included John Slipper and William Sexton.

In 1879 the mill was put up for sale but after no buyer came forward it was torn down in 1881.

Mr Allard said: “The South Middle mill appears to have been overlooked in literature on Norfolk's tallest windmills as available literature on the mill is sparse.”

For information on the Friends of Norfolk Mills visit www.norfolkmills.co.uk