Ancient watermill grinding into action

With a nationwide bottleneck in flour supply leaving shelves empty in Sleaford area shops, the team has come to the rescue to do their bit, cranking the ancient stones back into action and milling by alternating their time on site to produce the precious flour.

Dawn Oakley, a miller at Cogglesford, and her husband Duncan, who has been volunteering his time, have been milling, and fellow miller Debbie Scott has been bagging the flour on the days they are not on site, to ensure social distancing.

Cogglesford Watermill has been producing flour for more than 1,000 years and is thought to be the only Sheriff’s watermill still in operation in England.

Anne Flannery, visitor economy operations officer for North Kesteven District Council, which owns and promotes the mill, said: “We produce 1.5kg bags of wholemeal and white flour, and also have 1kg bags of porridge oats.

“So far we’ve bagged 26 white flour, 36 wholemeal and 65 bags of bran.”

They were hoping to have milled and bagged half as much again over the last few days.

Anne said: “We get the grain from Maud Foster Mill in Boston. It is a balance as we do not want to try to supply too many outlets as we cannot deliver.

“I took a supply of Cogglesford flour over to Heckington Windmill Shop on Thursday so it will be in stock there and we’ll be able to supply a small amount within Sleaford.

“I’m hoping to set up a ‘pop-up’ shop from my house on Grantham Road, I’ve put a tester on Facebook to gauge how much interest there is and have had a few responses already, which is great.”

Call 01529 308102 for details. She is also looking at approaching one or two shops in town.

The mill hosted a ‘virtual milling day’ on Twitter (@Cogglesford) and is trying to keep in touch with visitors by finding new ways to share information about this historic building.