Chislet windmill was a Grade II listed smock mill

Smock mill

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 in Chislet

Chislet

Chislet is a sprawling rural parish in the northeast of the English county of Kent between the city of Canterbury and the Isle of Thanet. It is also the name of a village within the parish....

, Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It was built in 1744 and burnt down on 15 October 2005.

History

The earliest record of a mill at Chislet is from 1666. Chislet windmill was built in 1744. It was marked on Murdoch Mackenzie's map of 1774 and the 1819-43 Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

 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, Barnes Wallis

Barnes Wallis

Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, CBE FRS, RDI, FRAeS , was an English scientist, engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the RAF in Operation Chastise to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during World War II...

 lived in the Mill House, and watched the tests of the bouncing bomb

Bouncing bomb

A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed specifically to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner, in order 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-determined...

 at nearby Reculver

Reculver

Reculver is a hamlet and coastal resort situated about east of Herne Bay in southeast England. It is a ward of the City of Canterbury district in the county of Kent. Reculver once occupied a strategic location at the western end of the Wantsum Channel, between the Isle of Thanet and the Kent...

 from the top of the mill. The corrugated iron 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

Windmill sail

Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different designs, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails.-Jib sails:...

. The mill was winded by a fantail. The mill drove three pairs of millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s. 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:-

External links

• Windmill World page on the mill.