This charming 20th century painting by Doris Zinkeisen represents Heckington Mill as it is today. In 1890, the cap was blown off and the mill severely damaged in a storm. Originally it had five sails, not the eight here. A cap was purchased from a similar mill scheduled for demolition and replaced the demolished cap. None with just five sails was available and they were no longer manufactured.
Why is this important? The mill is one of the few remaining in Lincolnshire of more than 100 and the only functioning mill, so I am told. It looked different at the top than it did when my
2-times great grandaunt Mary Eyre married George Muxlow there in 1842, the Greethams in 1851, and my 3-times great grandmother Mary Scott Hare/Eyre and my 2-times great grandaunt Martha Eyre Maplethorpe and her family, with whom she lived, resided there in 1861. It was a sight they would all have known - the village was not large - and a place they would have all gone to have grain milled into flour or to purchase flour. This was one of two mills in the village. The other also lost its cap at some point but was not repaired and restored. Today it is just a small tower in the village. Pocklington’s Mill, as it is still popularly known, is a much-visited relic of the past that teaches an important part of the folk history of England.
But WHY is this important? It teaches an important part of MY folk history - the way my people lived, the how of daily life. It helps me understand them, to really get to know them. It puts flesh on their bones. It makes them real. It connects the present to the past and on into the future.
New PS Darker, Warmth, and Sunshine portrait adjustment added to LO for aging. Other than that there are no special techniques used.
