Swavesey and District History Society
June 2026 meeting.
The several members on holiday were made up for by first-timers so about 40 people heard Selwyn from Swavesey end the 2025/26 season with a talk about Houghton watermill on the Great Ouse, where he is a tour guide. There is a document in the archives of Lincoln Museum which records that in the year 974 Ailwyn, a wealthy Bedfordshire landowner, purchased the manor of Houghton plus the watermill and the large meadow to the south and gave the whole package to Ramsey Abbey. This was a new Benedictine abbey started only 5 years earlier in 969 on a low gravel island in the Fens. 6,000 watermills are recorded In the Domesday book of 1086 when Houghton mill was valued at only 20 shillings which was a low value for a mill so it must have been disappointing.
In the village square at Houghton there is a large bronze statue of an outstanding man, Potto Brown, placed on a large granite plinth. Potto was the 4th child of twelve and his maternal grandmother was named Sarah Potto, hence his silly name. He managed the watermill for 42 years from 1821 to 1863 during the time when the mill was at its most productive. In Potto’s time there were 120 watermills along a 70-mile stretch from Earith to Buckingham but today Houghton mill is the only one which still grinds wheat into flour. Watermills were introduced into England by the Romans because they had to supply their army with large quantities of bread. There was a Roman camp 2½ miles across the valley at Godmanchester on Ermine Street where it came up from London to cross The Great Ouse and continued north to Lincoln, then on to its terminus at York.
The mill has three working floors with two more grain storage floors in the loft. The St Ives end is brick built after a serious fire in an unknown year in the 1600s. The Huntingdon end is mainly built of wood after another serious fire in 1754. It was powered by the river which turned 3 waterwheels, two running 3 pairs of millstones each and the biggest upright shaft, an impressive elm tree felled in 1750, turned 4 pairs of millstones.
The mill closed in 1929 mainly because of strong competition from imported foreign wheat, especially from Canada, which could be moved by rail from the ports to large industrial towns such as Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield where it was milled using steam power instead of less-reliable river power. Most of the machinery was left idle and is still inside today, including the large elm tree trunk. The building was used by the Youth Hostel Association from 1935 to 1982 with accommodation for up to 50 youngsters who walked or cycled along the Ouse Valley Way.
Historic England has graded around 350,000 sites across England for architectural and historic interest, with grading affording them much legal protection. Only 2% are in Grade 1, including Ely cathedral and Kings College Chapel. Houghton mill is one grade lower at Grade 2-star which covers 6% of listed buildings so it is in the top 8%
Tours led by experts are bookable on Wednesdays with walk-in, self-guided tours on Saturdays, assisted by helpful room guides and with flour also being milled on Saturdays.
Next meeting: – 15 September when the 2026/27 season starts. Horsepower, Ploughs and Frogs. Mike Muncaster
