Alford Windmill Alford · Lincolnshire · England

Alford Windmill was built in 1837 by the local millwright Sam Oxley. It was constructed as a tall Lincolnshire tower mill for flour milling, with a slender tarred brick tower, an outside gallery, a white ogee cap, fantail, and five patent-shutter sails. The mill formed part of a group of four windmills in Alford and is the sole survivor of that local milling landscape.

Its working arrangement included three pairs of stones originally, later increased to four, with both grey or Peak stones and French stones. A town-gas engine in an adjacent shed later allowed the mill to work when wind conditions were insufficient. In its working years the mill was capable of grinding four to five tonnes of corn a day.

The adjacent cottage was built in 1870 and was later used as a museum. The mill worked until 1955, after which it stood idle for a short period before being restored to working order. It is listed Grade I, reflecting the importance of its surviving structure and machinery.

Lincolnshire County Council records the mill as a seven-storey, five-sail listed windmill and has worked with Alford Windmill Trust and Alford Town Council on its future. The mill remains a defining landmark of Alford and a substantial survival of Lincolnshire's nineteenth-century wind-powered flour-milling industry.