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Smock corn mill in operation
West Tilbury Smock Mill worked as a wind-powered corn mill.
Site overview
West Tilbury Smock Mill is a former wind-powered corn mill, now represented by its surviving base. Specialist mill records identify the site as a smock mill at West Tilbury, with the base reused as a garden store. Photographic records show the mill disused with its cap around 1909 and again in April 1922, before later records show the surviving base in June 1971.
Windmill World records the site as a smock corn mill with base survival, and the Mills Archive records the related West Tilbury smock mill site. The working timber smock, cap, sails and machinery have gone, but the base preserves the footprint and lower structure of a former Thames-side Essex windmill.
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
West Tilbury Smock Mill stood at West Tilbury and worked as a wind-powered corn mill. The surviving structure is the former smock-mill base, now reused as a garden store. The site is recorded in specialist mill sources as West Tilbury smock mill, with the Mills Archive and Windmill World both identifying the former windmill.
The mill belonged to the wider group of Essex smock mills in which a timber smock body stood above a fixed base and only the cap turned to face the wind. At West Tilbury the upper smock, cap, sails and machinery have disappeared, but the base remains. Windmill World describes the survival as a base reused as a garden store.
Photographic records provide the strongest chronology for the site’s later life. The mill was photographed disused with its cap around 1909, and another record of April 1922 also shows it disused with the cap still present. By June 1971 the surviving base was recorded, indicating that the upper working structure had been removed by then. West Tilbury Smock Mill now survives as a small adapted base, preserving a physical remnant of wind-powered corn milling in the historic village landscape west of Tilbury.
Timeline
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Base reused as garden store
The former smock-mill base survived in reuse as a garden store.
1909
Disused mill photographed
The smock mill was photographed disused with its cap still present around 1909.
1922
Disused capped mill recorded
The disused mill was photographed with its cap in April 1922.
1971
Surviving base photographed
The surviving base of the former smock mill was photographed in June 1971.
Sources and records
Windmill World site entry
Mills Archive site record
Windmill Photographic Register
Essex windmills list
Mills Archive site record
Windmill Photographic Register
Essex windmills list