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Derelict mill photographed
Later photographic records show the derelict smock mill with partial sails, remains of a fantail, and a stone base.
Site overview
Pluckley Mill was a smock corn mill at Pluckley. It was built in 1872 and stood on The Pinnocks, where it became a local landmark. The mill worked until 1916.
Later photographs show it in derelict condition, with partial sails, remains of a fantail, and a stone base. It was burnt down in 1939. The site is therefore a former windmill location rather than a surviving complete smock mill, but its recorded history preserves the main phases of a late nineteenth-century Kent windmill from construction through working use to dereliction and loss.
Map
Map markers and directions links are provided for location reference only and do not indicate public access or permission to enter a site.
No site photograph is currently available. Images will be added as field visits are carried out.
History
Pluckley Mill was a smock corn mill built in 1872 at Pluckley. It stood on The Pinnocks and was also remembered locally as Dicky Buss's Mill. The mill formed part of the late nineteenth-century wind-powered milling landscape of the Weald, where smock mills remained in use alongside other rural corn-milling sites.
The mill worked until 1916. After its working life ended, it survived in derelict condition for a further period. Photographic material records the mill standing on a stone base, with partial sails and the remains of a fantail, showing that recognisable windmill fabric survived after active milling had ceased. The mill was burnt down in 1939. Pluckley Mill is now a lost windmill site, but the sequence of construction, working use, dereliction, and destruction is clearly preserved in the published windmill record.
Timeline
1872
Smock mill built
Pluckley Mill was built as a smock corn mill.
1916
Working use ended
The smock mill worked until 1916.
1939
Mill burnt down
Pluckley Mill was burnt down in 1939.
Sources and records
Windmill World site entry
List of windmills in Kent
Mills Archive photographic records
Lincolnshire Museums image record
Kent windmill reference works
List of windmills in Kent
Mills Archive photographic records
Lincolnshire Museums image record
Kent windmill reference works