Kirkstead Mill Kirkstead · Lincolnshire · England

Kirkstead Mill stood at the corner of Mill Lane and Green Lane in the Kirkstead area near Woodhall Spa. The site succeeded an earlier post mill and was built in the 1880s with a steam engine alongside it. This combined arrangement reflects a late phase of Lincolnshire milling in which wind power was supplemented by mechanical power to support more reliable cereal processing.

The mill suffered a severe fire in 1887. After the fire it was reinstated with engine-driven machinery, marking a major change in the working arrangement of the site. The tower mill itself had six storeys and four sails, but its complete wind-powered form has not survived. Later records describe the mill as severely truncated.

Kirkstead Mill belonged to the wider Kirkstead Wharf landscape. Local history records a flour mill in the area by 1856 powered by a steam engine and describes the mill's relationship with a leat, the River Witham, a bakery, and a former ferry crossing. The surviving truncated tower therefore records both the late nineteenth-century windmill and an older milling and transport landscape beside the Witham.