Ripple Windmill is a

Grade II 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 Ire ...

listed

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 Ringwould,

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, that was built in Drellingore and moved to Ringwould in the early nineteenth century. Having been stripped of machinery and used as a television mast, it has been restored as a working windmill.

Description

Ripple Mill is a two-storey smock mill on a two-storey brick base. There is no stage. It has four single

patent sails Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different designs, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails. Jib sails The jib sail is found in Mediterranean countries and consists of a simple triangle of cloth wound ro ...

and a Kentish-style cap. The mill is winded by a

fantail Fantails are small insectivorous songbirds of the genus ''Rhipidura'' in the family Rhipiduridae, native to Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the species are about long, specialist aerial feeders, and named as ...

. The mill has three pairs of millstones, driven underdrift.

History

A windmill was marked on Robert Morden's map of 1695, a coastal map of Kent dated 1770 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. ''Ripple mill'' was built in the early nineteenth century at Drellingore, in the

Hawkinge Hawkinge ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Folkestone and Hythe (District), Folkestone and Hythe district of Kent, England. The original village of Hawkinge is actually just less than a mile (c. 1.3 km) due east of the present village ce ...

parish. When the mill was moved, it was sectioned by cutting the cant posts in half lengthways, and bolting them back together at the new site. One such cant post can still be seen in the mill. A girl was killed by being struck by one of the sails, which came close to the ground, circa 1834. In 1895,

Trinity House "Three In One" , formation = , founding_location = Deptford, London, England , status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity , purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons , he ...

contributed towards repairs to the mill, which was marked as a navigational landmark. The mill lost two sails in 1927 and worked after that on the other two sails, assisted by an oil engine. The mill was working 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 ...

but in 1947 the

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in ...

decided not to issue an appeal to restore the mill due to a lack of local support. In 1955, the mill was acquired by Rediffusion Ltd and stripped of machinery. The smock was festooned with aerials and used as a television relay station. Rediffusion sold the mill in 1976. The new cap was placed on the mill in 1994, with the windshaft from Shiremark Mill, Capel, Surrey.

Millers

*John Mummery 1833–1849 *Henry Mummery 1845–1852 *William Mummery *W Davison 1862 *Edwin Pope 1878 *John Banks *George Simpson *John E Monins (died during WW2) References for above:-

References

External links

Windmill World page
on the mill. {{Kent Windmills Industrial buildings completed in the 17th century Windmills in Kent Grinding mills in the United Kingdom Smock mills in England Grade II listed buildings in Kent Octagonal buildings in the United Kingdom