The Winchester City Mill is one of the oldest watermills in the country a mill having existed on the site since at least Saxon times, possibly on the site of an earlier Roman mill. Extremely profitable to begin with it had fallen into disrepair by 1471 and then gifted to the city in 1554 by Mary I after her marriage to Philip of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.
The current building was rebuilt in 1743 – the painter J M W Turner sketched the mill in 1795 when he was a student which is the earliest depiction of the mill.
The mill eventually ceased operating in the 1900s, being saved from demolition by a group of locals who raised the money to buy it and then gifted it to the National Trust in 1928.
The National Trust didn’t actually use the mill for its intended purpose until about 2004 but sadly the mill ceased operating in 2023 so you can’t see the milling process in action. You can see the watermill working away down below it just isn’t producing any flour at the moment; the Trust is fundraising to get a new mill wheel. (In fact, as I write this post it looks like a new mill wheel is being fitted – July 2026).
There’s a garden area outside that you can sit down in, and have your lunch from the cafe out here if you want and watch the River Itchen go by.
Speaking of the cafe, I had one of the best scones of my life there – lemon and white chocolate. It was one of the Trusts “Scones of the Month” and I can see why!
Although a National Trust property it is open, for free, to everyone.
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