Alford is a market town lying at the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

It has a working five-sailed windmill and a thatched manor house open to the public.

This photograph is taken from St Wilfrid's churchyard looking ahead to West Street close to the centre of the town.

Undated postcard

This red brick church on Chauntry Road was in active use by the Congregationalists from 1876 (when it was built at a cost of £1200) to 2010.

undated postcard

The former Congregational Chapel on the corner of Chauntry Road and West Street is currently a place of worship for Alford Community Church.

September 2018

The local Millwright, Oxley, built this mill in the late 1830s and it is still in working order. It is owned by Lincolnshire County Council.

Location of mill: TF 457 765

This elegant five-sailed windmill (TF 457766), Hoyle's Mill, was built by Oxley's, millwrights in Alford, in 1837 with later gearing and ironwork supplied by Tuxford of Boston.

With supplementary diesel engine power it worked until 1955.

The mill, fully restored in 2000, is now owned by Lincolnshire County Council and is once more operated commercially.

It is open to the public.

Frank Robinson, 2010

Closer view of the five sails and the automaic shuttering mechanism to control the effective area of the sails.

Rod Callow, 2007

Alford Manor House was built in 1611 in a traditional H-plan with thatched roof and timber frame.

Unusually, the walls were encased with brick to form an integral part of the structure, making it a rare example of its kind and it is possibly the largest thatched manor house in England.

This substantial property became the home of Sir Robert Christopher who was knighted in 1660 for his support of the King in the English Civil War.

Today, the house is fully restored and open to the public.

Chris Lester, 2010

Timber framework survives from the original building of c.1540.

Sir Robert Christopher, who bought nearby Tothby and Rigsby manors, rebuilt Alford Manor House in 1661. The brick front was added in c.1700.

Through marriage the house passed successively to the Sherrard and Manners families until c.1900 when it became part of Walter Rawnsley’s Well estate.

The last occupant was Miss D Higgins, who donated the building to Alford Civic Trust in 1967.

Photo by H D Martineau c.1980

The Manor House has Tudor origins, seen for example in its timber frame and roof timbers. However, the south facade facing the street (seen here) was rebuilt in whole or part in both eigthteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Rod Callow, 2007

The school standing on the corner of Parsons Lane and West Street was built as a Girls’ National School in 1851. The cost of £200 was donated by John Rear.

September 2018

This building on South Street was opened by the Primitive Methodists in 1837. It was enlarged in 1856 and a schoolroom added in 1873.

In the early 1940s the congregation joined with the former Wesleyans in the West Street chapel.

November 2018

The original school building on West Street,

 Undated postcard

The John Spendluffe School is named after its late sixteenth-century benefactor who left land at Farlesthorpe to support a school in thr town.

This was originally a senior school to take older children from previously all-age schools in the area. It was the first in Lindsey to serve a small town and rural area in this way.

November 2018

View of St Wilfrid's church from the south.

undated postcard

This view of St Wilfrid's from the north-east shows the Decorated chancel with its 5-light east window.

The outer north aisle (to the right) was added by Sir G G Scott in 1865-81.

A post card published by Parker of Alford (undated).

St. Wilfrid's church in Alford has many features from the Decorated period along with a Perpendicular screen, Jacobean pulpit and a fine alabaster tomb.

St Wilfrid's was heavily restored in the Victorian period.

Mark Acton, 2008

The four-stage west tower was built in 1529-30 in Perpendicular style. Like most of the building it is constructed in greenstone with limestone dressings.

December 2014

This monument in the chancel is to Sir Robert Christopher (died 1668) and his wife.

December 2014

The Jacobean pulpit in St Wilfrid's is of uncommon pattern.  There are low blank arches and odd, barbaric figures.

December 2014

A busy scene on the opening day for the tramway between Alford and Sutton on Sea, 2 April 1884.

The tramway ran along the current A1111 but was closed in 1889 in the face of competition from the Willoughby to Sutton railway line.

This mill on Station Road was built in 1790 and worked until 1932. It originally had four storeys and four sails.

Jon Sass Collection, undated photograph

The cap and sails on Wallace's Mill in Station Road were removed in the 1930s and the interior fittings in piecemeal fashion afterwards.

It was reduced in height to a two-storey stump in the late 1960s.

Location of mill: TF 444 755

This impressive Methodist Chapel on West Street was opened in 1865 following the closure of the chapel in Chapel Street. The architect was William Botterill* of Hull.

Structural problems in the 1980s brought about the sale of the chapel for commercial use. The Alford Methodist comunity use the Sunday school rooms to the rear.

September 2018

* William Botterill (1820-1903) was a prominent architect. He and his son were responsible for several public buildings in Hull and elsewhere in the country. He was the architect for the much admired Centenary Methodist Chapel in Market Rasen.

The first permanent chapel for the Wesleyans in Alford was built in what became Chapel Street in 1819.

In 1839 a schoolroom was added and given the name 'Centenary' (after John Wesley's seminal religious experience of 1739).

The chapel and Sunday school closed in 1865. This date stone is in the Alford Manor House Museum collection.

November 2018