File:Sharp bend with floral display - geograph.org.uk - 894156.jpg

English: Sharp bend with floral display Another view of this sharp bend in Mill Road, winding its way around the southwestern corner of Bintree Mill - note the shape of the wall which allows for easier passing of lorries. The view is westerly across a sheep pasture in the flood plain of the River Wensum.

Robert Seaman Jr, a member of the Seaman family who operated Bintree mill for four generations, was a keen gardener, who used to alert all the workers to protect his borders when cattle was moved past the mill or gardens. He is also reported to having kept a resentful eye on any lorry driver who would unwittingly put a wheel onto the verge, most likely to have happened at this particular spot. See > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/894137 for a better view of the cultivated verge here. Mr Seaman was still living at the mill house in 2004 and the verge by the mill is still beautifully planted.

Bintree Mill with the adjoining miller's house and its own farm is situated by the River Wensum, only about 1.5 kilometres distant from the village of Bintree but nevertheless isolated, surrounded by pastureland; the narrow, tree-lined road snakes past it. Remodelled in the 19th century, not much remains of the original C18 building which featured in the 1997 BBC TV series "Mill on the Floss", based on the book by George Eliot and starring Emily Watson and Bernard Hill. For the film the walls of the mills were blackened in order to give it a distressed appearance. In 1947 the waterwheel was removed and the wheelhouse floor concreted over. Motive power was moved to electricity; the mill ceased operating in 1980.