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“Winteringham is a pretty place,
It stands upon a hill,
It has two chapels and a church
and Charlie Clayton's Mill.”
Poem often quoted by Harry Clarke, courtesy of his daughter Mary Fell
Milling was mentioned in Domesday Book, when there were apparently three mills in
the village, which were presumably water powered. Later post mills, cap-mills and power driven mills were used.
A post mill - the earliest common type of wind-driven mill in Britain - was
reputedly sited on Cliff Road, which one would expect to be the windiest area of the parish.
The Alexandra Flour Mill in High Burgage was preceded by another mill, in Mill
Field, where a mound marked its position.
The Alexandra Flour Mill (pictured) was the last wind-powered mill in the village.
The OS map of 1885, updated in 1906, also labels a ‘Flour Mill’ in a large building
about 100 metres north of the Railway Station, between the Haven and Low Burgage, of which there is now no trace. According to “Winteringham - A Further Browse” this mill didn’t close until 1952.
It was owned by the Clayton family, and was oil-driven, producing mainly animal feed, grinding oats, beans and barley on their own or in mixtures for cattle, poultry and pig food.
The Alexandra Flour Mill, opposite the Ferry Boat Public House, was sold in 1837 by
Benjamin Brown along with the dwelling house, mill garden and cottages, and these were bought for £1,300 by Ralph Shaw of Althorpe. It was mentioned in White’s Directory of 1842, by which time Charles Judge
was the miller. He was still there in 1851, by which time he was 47 years old. He had been born in Smarden, Kent. He and his wife (Mary, born in Blyton near Gainsborough, and eight years his
junior), had seven children when the 1851 census was taken, ranging in age from a one-month-old daughter, up to the eldest daughter who was fourteen. The four sons, aged from 5 to 12 were all ‘scholars.’
A ‘journeyman miller’ also lived with the Judge’s.
He was 20 years-old Thomas Chamberlain, from Walesby near Market Rasen. The family also appear to have employed a nurse, and a general servant. The origins of Charles Judge’s milling career, and of his marriage can only be guessed at, but the fact that his mother-in-law also came from Smarden in Kent, and was living with the Judges in Winteringham does push our thoughts in only one direction.
The mill itself was a four-sailed cap mill.
By the time of the next Directory - 1868 -
Samuel Bates had become the village miller, and he was last mentioned in 1896.
It is understood that the mill was converted to
being power-driven, and its sails removed - as supported by Henry Brumby’s drawing showing no sails and a tall chimney in the background.
Milling died out in villages largely due to the
introduction of roller mills at ports where grain was either transported by the railways, or imported from the US and Canadian Prairies
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In 1910, Henry Brumby, then aged 10, made a
drawing of the Alexandra Flour Mills during a school art lesson. This drawing is based on his original.
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Photographs from the early part of the 20th century (left)
show the Mill chimney. The top photograph shows it from Low Burgage, and the lower photograph is taken from Market Hill.
