The tower mill was erected on Willoughby Road on the east side of John Rennie's Maud Foster Drain for Thomas and Isaac Reckitt by the Hull millwrights Norman and Smithson in 1819. Corn for the mill was brought in by barge along the drain. The original drawings and accounts survive, telling us that it cost £1826-10s-6d. The Reckitt brothers were millers, corn factors and bakers until poor harvests in the years up to 1833 led to the mill being sold. Isaac Reckitt moved to Nottingham and then to Hull where he set up Reckitt & Sons.