Nocton and District WI - report

November Report

November`s open meeting gave us a fascinating insight into the history and regeneration of Heckington Windmill courtesy of Jim Bailey, Director, Trustee and Miller. Heckington Mill, a grade 1 listed property, is the only 8 sailed windmill in the world still in working order.

Most windmills have 4 sails but it was discovered through experimentation that the more sails present, though more expensive to build, allowed the miller to work with a lighter wind. In time though it was realised that because of the extra costs involved there was little difference in the overall efficiency of the mill and by 1850 of the 15,000 mills in the country only 7 had 8 sails.

The mill at Heckington was built by the Nash family in 1830 and was originally a 5 sail mill. There then followed a very convoluted family story of death, spurned marriages, marriages and inheritance until in 1890 the mill was no longer profitable to run and was put up for auction. Sadly before the auction date a terrible storm swept through Lincolnshire and the top blew off the mill.

Heckington Mill fortunately was saved from the fate of decay at this stage when John Pocklington, a local miller, used the machinery from another mill to repair it and transformed it to a working 8 sail mill. John was a very successful business man from very poor and humble beginnings and as well as saving the mill developed a builders yard, timber merchants, farm and coal merchants in the lands surrounding the mill.

John died in 1940 and his son was set to take down the mill and sell the properties around it. North Kesteven Council seeing its historic significance bought it but little was done with it other than basic maintenance until 1982 when a group of enthusiastic individuals formed the “Friends of Heckington Windmill” and began to bring it back to life.

In 1986 it began to mill again and in 2007 a massive regeneration project commenced. This involved working through the Heritage Lottery process for 6 years which eventually gave them the £1.6 million needed to complete the full regeneration plan which included the repair of John Pocklington`s old house and the Bakehouse, the development of a Tearoom, Visitors centre, Brewery and a full replacement of the 8 sails on the mill, the later being a topic covered in the BBC programme “Countryfile”.

The whole project was officially opened in October this year by Princess Anne. Baking demonstrations, baking courses and tours of the brewery are held regularly and we were all left with a desire to visit this beautiful and historic site. During the interval we were able to purchase various types of flour, bran and porridge oats made at the mill as well as sample bread made from its very fine flour.

The raffle, a selection of kitchen implements and oven gloves was won by Vicky and the competition, an old kitchen utensil, was won by Janet G , with Jenny K second and Maryann third.

December brings our annual Christmas party with the very welcome return of the magician Paul Vickers, in January we have a “Paint Your Own Mug” session and an open meeting in February where the highly entertaining and knowledgeable Paul Mooney returns to cover more “Wonders of the Universe”.

The meetings are the second Monday of the month at 7.15pm in Nocton Village Hall. For more details please visit our website at noctonanddistrictwi.weebly.com

Report courtesy of Jane Kania - many thanks