The Working Windmill

​Although Heckington windmill is currently not operational,​ we still have the ability to grind our own wheat for flour using our oil engine driven stones on the ground floor of the windmill, our electric powered Austrian stones and our portable farm mills driving by either a portable oil engine or a steam engine

The mill contains 6 floors - the ground (loading) floor, meal floor, stone floor (at gallery level), bin floor, top floor and dust floor, immediately below the cap.

The 8 sails are kept facing into the wind by the fan tail at the rear of the cap. The sails are attached to the wind shaft which transfers the power from the sails into the drive shaft which runs down to the stone floor to turn the mill stones.  

The two bin floors are used to store wheat, the grain being raised up from the ground floor by the sail powered chain hoist.  Gravity brings the grain down from the storage bins into the mill stones where it is ground into flour.  The flour then travels down shutes to the meal floor where it is weighed and bagged for sale.

Cutaway showing the 6 floors of the mill

We have two types of mill stone, Derbyshire grit stones which produce wholemeal flour and French stones, used for white flour.  The output from the French stones needs to be bolted (sieved) to remove the bran, so you can also buy stone-ground white flour.  The sieving process also produces a flour we call Special Brown which is high in bran, and bakes a brown loaf.  

All our wheat is English; it makes very good bread, using both traditional methods and bread machines, it is also good for cakes and biscuits.  

A recipe booklet is available at the mill to help you get the most from our stone ground flours.

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The Mill in Action

Hurst frame in action with Ruston engine

The windmill running under wind power

Threshing weekend

Clip from YouTube from a visitor

OUR FLOUR

All our flour is stone-ground at the windmill, using locally grown wheat. Available to buy from the mill shop.

A good quality
​all-round flour for bread and cakes

A blend of wheat and black wheat producing a strong nutty wholemeal flour

Good wholemeal flour with nothing taken out

Spelt wholemeal flour - great for  a really tasty loaf of bread 

Blended in-house for perfect cakes and scones

A dark alternative to wheat flour - rye makes great sour-dough

Bran which has been separated out from the white flour

Oat flour taken by milling our porridge oats to create a lower gluten alternative

Our oats make perfect porridge & flapjacks

White flour that has been finely ground to produce a much finer perfect for pizza dough

Did you know?

At the height of its working life, the mill frequently worked around the clock. Forty sacks of grain (5 tonnes) per day were often exceeded.
A Ruston of Lincoln oil engine installed in the adjacent engine shed ensured that the mill continued to work even when there was no wind.

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8 Sail Facts

Heckington mill originally started life with 5 sails.  
It wasn’t until almost 60 years later, after a storm that the new 8 sailed machinery was fitted

National Mills Archive - From Quern to Computer

Discover the history of flour milling via the National Mills Archive interactive resources

The Great British Mill Race - identify your mill

National Mills Archive Timeline

​Flour Milling History Articles

Buy the booklet
From Quern to Computer

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Society for the Protection of
​ Ancient Buildings
​(SPAB)  Mills Section

For more info visit: www.spab.org.uk/mills