PRN 64905 During the eighteenth century, there was a considerable rope manufacturing business in operation here. Just south of the drove raod was a close used as a bleaching ground, where hemp and flax, some probably grown locally, was soaked to rot away the pithy core. "Retting" tanks or deep pits had to be dug, filled with hemp and then flooded. Along the river bank, where houses and the electricity station (PRN 60465) now stand, was a ropewalk. The ropemaking which went on here was the joint concern of the Foster and Hill families.{1} A hemp mill and bleaching house was established along the banks of the River Slea by Thomas Foster and John Foster in the mid 18th century. In Hare's survey of 1783, we find Thomas Hill and John Foster occupying a Hemp Mill at the end of Westgate "consisting of one water wheel and proper works for beating flax" and a bleaching house of stone and brick near to it. The Hemp Mill which Foster and Hill used to beat their flax has now gone. It was the highest mill recorded on the River Slea and stood where Castle Causeway and Westgate join, close to Electric Station Road. Part of the mill race can still be seen running under the road, on the opposite side of West Banks footpath. Some brick footings are also visible, either from the mill or one of its outbuildings.{1} Thomas Hill, flaxdresser, died in 1791 and the younger John Foster in 1802; but it looks as if the rope making may have continued well into the nineteenth century. Two more Sleaford flaxdressers, Leeson and Thomas Smith, died in 1821. Even as late as 1887, when rope making must have ended here, the position of the redundant ropewalk is still marked on maps of the area.{1}