In about 1916 the Newall family arrived and have been there ever since. The family came from Muswell Hill where the Mr Newall of the day had married a Miss Hannant from North Norfolk by whom he had had five children before (apparently) departing for Canada. The former Miss Hannant (whose family still live in Baconsthorpe) took the traditional step of bringing her family back to Norfolk where the eldest son Donald, helped by his brother William, took on the tenancy of the mill. The youngest brother Frank lived at Beck House Kelling, having taken on the position of managing several farms recently bought by the Deterding family.

By 1920 Mr Donald Newall was carrying on a baking business at the mill. He and William had been able to persuade the Gurneys to add additional land to their tenancy so they also extended their activities to farming “Mill Farm''. This was an odd shaped farm including the Glaven meadows, higher land towards Holt (later to be built upon by Kongskilde), and land adjoining Hall_Farm. The combined enterprise employed seven people between the wars.

The Hempstead Estate was advertised to be sold by Francis Hornor & Son at the Royal Hotel, Norwich on Saturday, June 16th 1945 not much more than a month after the end of the war. The Gurney sisters were selling not only the Hempstead Estate but also land at Earlham and other land on the Wiveton marshes plus the Manor Farm, Baconsthorpe.

The estate was bought as a whole (with a single high bid) by Mr George Knight.

The 408 acres of woodland (mostly let to the Forestry Commission) were sold to Mr John Watson, Mill_Farm, including Hempstead_Mill and land adjoining Green_Farm, to Mr R D H Harmer, and Church_Farm and Hole_Farm to Mr Richard Johnson. The Mill Pool and cottages were sold to Mr I J Coussells.

Meanwhile in 1945 Donald had fallen out with Mr George Knight who, having bought the Gurneys' estate, had offered to sell on to any tenants who wanted to buy at an enhanced price. The Newall family had thought that it had been agreed that they should buy at the price which Mr George Knight paid - so they refused to buy and stayed put as tenants.

In 1947 Donald died and Frank (who had retired from working for the Deterdings) took over the mill.

By 1948 Mr Walter Platford and his family lived in one half of what became Hawksmere. The other half was occupied by the Yarham family. Both worked for the Newalls,

In 1953 the baking enterprise ceased as a result of Sunblest Bread starting its own bread round. ln the same year the generator ceased to work.

The most romantic property in Hempstead, now known as Hawksmere, has an interesting history of its own. It is first shown on the 1841 Tithe Map and probably consisted originally of a pair of cottages overlooking the mill pool referred to in the 1945 sale as the Mill Cottages. The cottages abutted an estate road - bordered by lime trees - laid out by the Gurneys when they built the Mill and its very considerable supporting water supplies. Unlike many mills on the upper water of small rivers, which in the Summer months often only had enough water to work a few hours a day, the Hempstead Mill worked a regular twelve hour shift, its water supply being topped up at the main mill pond by releases from Selbrigg Pond, the upper mill pond (until it was swept away in 1912), from Horsepit Pond and occasionally from the Small Decoy. This arrangement meant that the miller had to walk or ride to operate the sluices of these other ponds at regular intervals. The roadway past Hawksmere, turning up hill to Horsepit Pond and the Red_House, leading on to Selbrigg, would have been built for this purpose.

Other mills were operated by the miller and his family alone. 'Why were there a pair of cottages as well? The occupiers of the Mill Cottages in the thirties worked both in the mill and on Mill_Farm. But before that the answer may lie in the very large sand and gravel pits which existed on the east side. Mr Hunt, the owner since a 1982, has dug up a variety of gravel-working equipment showing this was a major pit. Would it not, when worked by the Gurney estate, have required the presence of two cottages alongside to house its workers? The gravel pit existed by 1841.

In 1965, when the executors of Mr George Knight sold much of his Hempstead property, they were in something of a predicament as to how best to maximise their returns in regard to Mill_Farm Hempstead which was a tenanted farming property with, presumably, no chance of vacant possession and yet every likelihood of involving expense to the Landlord in the maintenance of the Mill. Mr George Knight's executors were in the course of selling Green_Farm to the Harmer family, who had expressed interest in all the adjoining land also being offered for sale.

Seemingly the executors entered into an asset stripping enterprise by selling off separately the two cottages, together with the millpond and such of the adjoining land as was not subject to the agricultural tenancy. They maximised value by selling the millpond with the cottages - even the ground up to the north wall of the Mill House itself - and the sluiceways under the mill so that the owners of the Mill Cottages (Hawksmere) could control the levels of their millpond.
Hempstead, A Norfolk Village - Robin Carver - 2000

The Newell family rented the mill house (the east section of the mill building) to Walter Platford and his wife Dot, from c.1946 to c.1960, after which, Walter moved to Stalham.
Walter’s parents, Mark and Bessie Platford, lived next door, in the northwerstern of the two Mill Cottages, the one overlooking the millpool. They were there from c.1946 to c.1958, when Bessie moved to Baconsthorpe due to illness, where the family took turns to look after her.

Walter Platford's brother Cyril, as a teenager, also lived at the cottage on the Hawksmere site.

J. E. Russell applied for and received Planning Permission to convert the two cottages into a single dwelling on 3rd January 1966. The adjacent gravel pit was landscaped at around this time.