Working windmill country
North Leverton
An 1813 mill still grinding flour, with medieval church fabric and flat Trent Valley routes beyond the village.
- Best for
- A working windmill and Trent Valley walks
- Give it
- A half day for village stops, longer for a circular walk
- Don't miss
- Climbing all four mill floors while the sails turn
The Fox verdict
A village where the mill still works
North Leverton pairs a continuously working subscription windmill with a Grade I church, a traditional local pub and two substantial circular walks.
The mill is the defining visit: built by five local farmers in 1813, it still grinds flour and lets visitors climb all four floors. Add St Martin's medieval doorway and tracery, then choose between the flat Habblesthorpe circuit and the longer green-lane route to Sturton-le-Steeple.
Where to go
Places in North Leverton
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesNorth Leverton Windmill
An 1813 subscription windmill that still grinds flour, with four floors visitors can climb while the sails turn.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- North Leverton
- Access
- Visitor opening has shorter hours in autumn and winter.
North Leverton Village Store & Post Office
The village's Premier-branded shop and Post Office, stocking groceries, frozen food, drinks, newspapers, confectionery and National Lottery services.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 20 minutes
- Locality
- Main Street, North Leverton, DN22 0AD/0AW
North Leverton Play Park
A play park in North Leverton, included among the village's family and recreation facilities.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- In the village
Food & drink
1 placeRoyal Oak
An open-plan village pub with strong local trade, cask Doom Bar, real cider, darts, dominoes, a real fire, a beer garden and food.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Main Street, North Leverton, DN22 0AD
History & heritage
1 placeSt Martin's Church
A Grade I church whose oldest surviving fabric is a south doorway from around 1200, with ornate early-14th-century window tracery.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- North Leverton
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Three ways to explore North Leverton
Signature outings
Four floors of working history
Climb all four floors of the 1813 windmill while its sails turn, then buy flour milled on site.
Doorway and tracery
Look for the south doorway from around 1200 and the ornate window tracery added during the early-14th-century rebuilding.
Cask, cider and pub games
Stop at the Royal Oak for cask Doom Bar or real cider, with darts, dominoes, a real fire and a beer garden.
The village story
North Leverton Village Guide
A working mill, medieval church and flat Trent Valley landscape give this Nottinghamshire village its shape.
The Mill That Never Stopped
North Leverton's windmill has ground flour since 1813, and it's still doing the job it was built for. Five local farmers - William Rogers, William Ellis, William Ashton, John Bower and Thomas Olivant - put up the money to build it, for the parishes of Fenton, North Leverton, Habblesthorpe and Sturton-le-Steeple, and the subscription society they formed still owns it. Most surviving English windmills are static exhibits, sails pinned or removed. This one turns, every Saturday - 11am to 4pm in spring and summer, 11am to 3pm the rest of the year - free in, donation box on the way out, and you can climb all four floors while the sails work above you.
A TripAdvisor reviewer called it "an unspoiled gem... full of atmosphere," which for once undersells it. There's a Family Fun Weekend in early September with craft stalls, food stands, a car show and vintage farm machinery parked round the mill.
Main Street Essentials
The Royal Oak on Main Street is the village's one pub, open-plan and locally busy rather than done up for passing trade. It pours Sharp's Doom Bar on cask, keeps a proper cider, and has darts, dominoes, a real fire, a beer garden and a dog policy that doesn't require asking. Food runs Monday to Saturday lunchtime through early evening, Sunday afternoons only.
Groceries come from the Village Store and Post Office on Main Street, a Premier-branded shop covering the basics - frozen food, beer and wine, papers, a National Lottery counter. It's the only shop in the village; nothing more specific than that means a trip to Retford.
Church, Soke and Settlement
St Martin's is Grade I listed and older than it first looks. The south doorway dates to around 1200, with the chancel and south aisle added a century later under the de Everingham family of Laxton, and the window tracery from that rebuild is reckoned the best thing about the church. It was restored twice in Victorian times, the second in 1878 for £1,200, stripping out what one contemporary account called the "galleries and other unsightly ornaments of the Dark Ages."
Further back, North Leverton appears in the Domesday Book as Legreton, a berewick within the Archbishop of York's soke of Laneham - villagers, freemen, smallholders, a priest, a mill worth sixteen shillings, two fisheries.
Across the Trent Valley
There are two circular walks from the village: one to Habblesthorpe and back, flat and roughly 11.7km along footpaths and farm tracks past the Trent floodplain and the windmill; the other, longer, to Sturton-le-Steeple on green lanes and a stretch of the Trent Valley Way, with a few awkward stiles and fields that sometimes have cattle in them. The land is flat Trent Valley washland, and the cooling towers of Cottam and West Burton power stations sit on the skyline to the north - old windmill, new towers, both visible from the road in from Retford.
North Leverton with Habblesthorpe, to give the parish its full name, is the longest village name in England. Retford, on the East Coast Main Line, is the nearest station - about five miles, an eleven-minute drive, with a local bus too. There's a play park, a well-regarded primary school, and North Wheatley with Leverton Cricket Club plays its home season on a pitch here - not a spectacle, just a Saturday fixture, boundary rope up, somebody's mum running the tea urn.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- North Leverton Windmill — north-leverton-windmill.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Royal Oak — northlevertonwithhabblesthorpeparishcouncil.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- North Leverton Village Store & Post Office — premier-stores.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Martin's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- North Leverton Play Park — northlevertonwithhabblesthorpeparishcouncil.gov.uk statutory register or public authority