The mill’s origins

For thousands of years people have harnessed the power of wind, water and animals to grind cereals such as wheat and – since the Middle Ages – to power machinery such as saws to cut timber. A mill is both the power station that generates power and the factory that uses it.

Lincolnshire had about 500 working mills in the early 20th century. These included windmills and watermills for grinding cereals into flour and animal feed, and smock mills for pumping fen water into channels.

Early windmills were built of timber, but by the 19th century an increasing number of windmills in East Anglia were built of brick. Although more costly to build, brick windmills required less maintenance than timber mills.

The internal structures of all these mills used timber and iron.

In 1877 William Clapham, the miller of an old timber mill at Sibsey, invested in a new brick windmill. Unlike older post mills, in which the whole timber superstructure turned, this was a tower mill: the timber-framed cap and sails turned to face the wind, supported on a sturdy brick tower.

Built by the Lincolnshire millwrights Saundersons of Louth, it was taller – standing 23 metres high – and broader than the old mill. This made for less cramped working conditions for the miller and provided space for up to four pairs of millstones to turn at once.

The six sails harnessed a great deal of wind power. If one or two sails were damaged in a storm, the mill could still operate with four sails. William Clapham, assisted by his nephew-apprentice, had a fine, powerful modern mill.

For a windmill’s sails to turn they must face the wind. If the wind changes, it turns a smaller set of sails – the fantail – set at right angles to the main sails. The fantail causes the whole cap to rotate on a circular iron curb until the main sails face the wind again.

The sails then turn an almost-vertical wheel inside the cap called the brake wheel, which turns the horizontal wallower – the mill’s main power wheel. This turns the main drive shaft, a tall, vertical shaft that runs down four storeys of the mill. 

Milling took place on the second or millstone floor. Grain came down chutes from the floor above (the bin floor) into hoppers. These fed vibrating ‘shoes’ that shook and poured grain into the central hole of the millstones. The upper stone turned, forcing the grain into the narrow gap between the two stones and grinding it into meal, which could be fine flour or coarse oats. The meal flowed over the outer edge of the lower stone and down the meal chute into a sack on the meal floor below.

The miller controlled most of the operations from the meal floor. He could open a small shutter in the meal chutes to check the consistency of the flour. If necessary, he could pull a rope to increase the flow from the grain bins, or fine-tune the separation of the millstones using the iron tentering screw (which resembles a car jack) above his head. He closed the gap between the stones to make fine flour or increased it to make coarse meal.

The miller could also climb out onto the second-floor balcony, where he could pull a continuous chain to adjust the shutters in the sails. Opening the shutters if the wind was strong prevented the sails from turning too fast.

The mill today

With the death of Tommy Ward, the last full-time miller, in 1953, the mill quickly deteriorated. The government gave it Grade I listed status in 1955, but three years later the owner applied for permission to remove the cap and the four remaining sails – in other words, to turn it into a ruin. Permission was refused.

Fortunately, conservation works by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works (a predecessor of English Heritage) began in 1970, and the mill was formally taken into state guardianship in 1975. The millwrights Thompsons of Alford restored it to full working order in 1981 and a new miller, Ian Ansell, brought the building back to life as a working heritage mill.

In 2018 the mill was severely damaged in a storm and all six sails had to be removed. Another programme of restoration began, this time carried out by Suffolk millwright Tim Whiting. He rebuilt the mill’s timber cap and sails in his workshop and restored the curb – the iron track at the top of the tower on which the cap turns. The cap was lifted back into place in July 2022 and the restoration work was completed in 2024.