History

Origins
We do not actually know when the Mill was first built, but the earliest surviving reference to it is in the Domesday Book - a survey of all England - in 1086 AD. It is possible that it may even go back to Roman times (c.200-400 AD), but any evidence of this will be underneath the Mill and its dam.

The Heyday of the Mill
The Mill was always owned by the Lord of the Manor of Eling, and originally this was the King of England as Eling was a royal manor. In the early 1200s, however, the manor and Mill were sold off by King John. They went through various hands until 1382 AD, when the title - and with it the Mill - was purchased by the Bishop of Winchester and given to a school he was founding (along with many other properties) to be a source of income. This school - Winchester College, the famous public school - owned the Mill from 1382 to 1975 AD, though they did not run it directly, but rather leased it out on long leases.

Although a very small operation by today's standards, in the past it was not just a small local business. While some of the grain for milling was from local farms, more used to be brought several hundred miles round the coast in barges from the Eastern side of England; when the tide was in, the barges could be sailed up Southampton Water, into Eling Creek, and right up to the Mill. Maximum possible output, running both waterwheels and all four sets of stones at full speed for both tides, would have been about 4 tonnes of flour per day.

Rebuilds
The Mill has had to be rebuilt many times over the centuries, the last time being in the 1770s when it (and the dam) were completely rebuilt after a bad series of storms and floods. The current building is therefore some 220 years old, although it has been on the same site and always a tidal powered flour mill for at least 920 years.
The milling machinery was last replaced in 1892 AD, when the old wooden undershot wheels and main gearing were replaced by cast iron Poncelet-type wheels (which increased the efficiency) and cast iron axles and gears. Basically, though, it still has the same parts working the same way as it always did.

The End of the Mill ... almost
The market for all of the small, millstone-using mills (whether tidal, wind or river powered) was destroyed in this country about a hundred years ago by the large, steam-powered roller mills built at the docks to mill imported grain from Canada, and in England all of these small mills failed and closed in the first half of the century. Eling struggled on just doing animal feed, as did many other millstone-using flour mills, but by 1936 all of the tidal powered machinery had broken down and there was no money left to fix it. For ten years the last miller carried on with a small diesel engine running the animal feed machinery, but the mill was abandoned in 1946 and just left to rot until 1975.

Resurrection
In 1975 the Mill was bought by New Forest District Council (the local government body) who began work to save it from collapse, and to restore it as a site of some industrial archaeological importance. Eling Tide Mill Trust was then set up to oversee the final phase of the restoration, and to administer the Mill as a working mill/museum after the Mill reopened in 1980. The mill is now run by Totton and Eling Town Council who took over on 1st January 2009.

The mill originally had two waterwheels, each driving two sets of millstones. We have restored one wheel with one set of millstones and left the other side unrestored so that people can see the machinery without modern safety screens around it.
We are open five days a week (Wednesday to Sunday) all year, and are basically here for people to visit and see an old-style mill rather than as a productive flour business. We do, however, run the working machinery each day when the tide is right during our opening hours, and do produce and sell flour to visitors and local customers.