Ripple Windmill Ringwould · Kent · England

Ripple Windmill is a smock corn mill at Ripple, Ringwould. Earlier windmill activity is recorded in the area on Robert Morden's map of 1695, a coastal map of 1770, and the 1819–43 Ordnance Survey map. The present mill was built in the early nineteenth century at Drellingore in Hawkinge parish and was moved to Ripple. During the move, the cant posts were cut lengthways and bolted back together at the new site, and one such cant post remains visible in the mill.

The mill is a two-storey, eight-sided smock on a two-storey brick base. It has a Kentish-style cap, fantail winding, single patent sails, and three pairs of millstones driven underdrift. The restored mill carries a cast-iron windshaft from Shiremark Mill at Capel, Surrey.

Ripple Windmill had a long working life. Around 1834 a girl was killed after being struck by one of the sails. In 1895 Trinity House contributed towards repairs because the mill was marked as a navigational landmark. The mill lost two sails in 1927 but continued working on the remaining two, assisted by an oil engine. It was still working during the Second World War. In 1955 Rediffusion Ltd acquired the mill, stripped it of machinery, and used the smock as a television relay station. Rediffusion sold the mill in 1976. Restoration later returned the building to windmill form, with a new cap placed on the mill in 1994. Ripple Windmill now survives as a restored working smock mill and an important landmark near the Kent coast.