Chislet windmill was a
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...
smock mill
The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded, thatched, or shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This type ...
in
Chislet
Chislet is an English village and civil parish in northeast Kent between Canterbury and the Isle of Thanet. The parish is the second largest in the district. A former spelling, 'Chistlet', is seen in 1418. The population of the civil parish incl ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
. It was built in 1744 and burnt down on 15 October 2005.
History
The earliest record of a mill at Chislet is from 1666.
[''The Times'', 20 October 2005] ''Chislet windmill'' was built in 1744.
It was marked on Murdoch Mackenzie's map of 1774
and the 1819-43
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was ...
map and subsequent maps. The mill was working until 1916, when the cap and sails blew off in a gale,
it is said that the fantail was tied up by the tenant of the Mill House and thus was unable to turn the mill into wind, thus leading to the mill being tailwinded.
[ During the ]Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, Barnes Wallis
Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attac ...
lived in the Mill House, and watched the tests of the bouncing bomb
A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-dete ...
at nearby Reculver
Reculver is a village and coastal resort about east of Herne Bay on the north coast of Kent in south-east England.
It is in the ward of the same name, in the City of Canterbury district of Kent.
Reculver once occupied a strategic locati ...
from the top of the mill.[ The ]corrugated iron
Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a b ...
clad tower of the mill, with a simple roof over and retaining its major machinery stood until 15 October 2005 when it was destroyed by fire.[
]
In 2011, a replica mill was built on the site of the old mill as part of a new house.
Description
''Chislet windmill'' was a three-storey black smock mill on a low brick base, with four spring sails. The mill was winded by a fantail.[ The mill drove three pairs of millstones. The Wallower, Upright Shaft, Great Spur Wheel and two of the three Stone Nuts were wood, the third Stone Nut was iron.][
]
Millers
*Anthony May 1765-89
*M May 1795
*Henry Collard 1847
*Jonathan Packer 1862
*John Wootton 1878
*Thomas Wooton
*John Walter Wooton - 1918
References for above:-
References
External links
Windmill World page
on the mill.
{{Kent Windmills
Windmills in Kent
Grinding mills in the United Kingdom
Smock mills in England
Grade II listed buildings in Kent
Windmills completed in 1744
Octagonal buildings in the United Kingdom
1744 establishments in England