Bourne watermill receives £224K grant from Heritage at Risk Capital Fund 🌍

Bourne watermill, Colchester is one of the recipients of the 2026 Heritage at Risk Capital Fund awards.

According to the Historic England entry on the award,

Bourne Mill connected
Tendring District Council will use the funding to conserve and repair Bourne Mill, addressing water ingress, failing roof coverings, masonry defects, deteriorating historic joinery and the waterwheel structure through a conservation-led programme of works.
The funding will safeguard the heritage significance of Bourne Mill and prevent further deterioration, while enabling the site to reopen as a flexible heritage and community resource. This will support public access, learning, volunteering and community participation, as well as opportunities for heritage skills learning through partnerships with educational institutions.
Listed Grade I
Grant: £224,200

That entry raises a few questions:

• Bourne Mill is a National Trust property (bought by them in 1936), so unclear why Tendring District Council is the recipient of this grant.
• The mill is not even in the Tendring District Council area, which starts about a mile east of the mill, and there is no mention of the mill on the Tendring Council website.
• Those plans for reopening as a community resource again make no mention of the National Trust which already open the property.

The mill previously had about £4000 of repairs done in 2010, so this grant is a considerable advance on that amount.