Herne Windmill Herne · Kent · England

Herne Windmill is the surviving Kentish smock mill at Herne. Windmills are recorded in the parish from at least 1405, and an earlier post mill was standing in 1511. The earlier mill appeared on several historic maps, including maps by Philip Symonson, John Speed, Robert Morden, Emanuel Bowen, and Andrews, Drury and Herbert. The present smock mill is believed to date from 1789, a date carved into one of the cant posts.

The mill was built as a traditional Kentish smock mill, with an eight-sided timber frame clad in weatherboarding and surmounted by a cap with sails and fantail. It was raised in 1858, when a two-storey brick base was built underneath the smock. The mill has four double patent sails on a cast-iron windshaft, a Kentish-style cap, a six-bladed fantail, a stage between the first and second floors, and three pairs of millstones driven overdrift. The brake wheel has an iron centre and wooden rim, driving a wooden wallower and wooden upright shaft.

Herne Mill continued as a working mill into the twentieth century. In the 1930s it was working on two sails only. SPAB support, Trinity House assistance, and the work of Thomas Hunt of Soham helped secure replacement sails in 1936, with the mill also valued as a sea mark visible from the Thames Estuary. Wind working ended in 1952, after which milling continued by electric motor until 1980. Restoration began in the 1970s, and Kent County Council acquired the Grade I listed mill in 1984. It is now managed by the Friends of Herne Mill and remains one of Kent's most important surviving smock mills.