Willesborough Windmill Willesborough · Kent · England

Willesborough Windmill, historically also known as New Mill, was built in 1869 by the Ashford millwright John Hill. It replaced an earlier smock mill and was built as a substantial corn mill on a two-storey red brick base, with a four-storey, eight-sided smock above and an attached miller's cottage. The mill had four patent sails carried on a cast-iron windshaft and was winded by an eight-bladed fantail. Its machinery drove four pairs of millstones by wind, with a fifth pair powered by an auxiliary engine.

The mill was worked by the Cornes family until the First World War and by the Manwaring family from 1920 until 1938, when it last worked by wind. The auxiliary power system changed during the working life of the site: steam power was used until 1911, then an oil engine, and later an electric motor. The internal machinery included a composite brake wheel with an iron centre and wooden rim, a cast-iron wallower on the upright shaft, and a cast-iron great spur wheel driving the stones overdrift.

The mill remained a working mill into the later twentieth century and was later bought as a private dwelling. By 1991 the structure had deteriorated and Ashford Borough Council purchased it for restoration. The restoration returned the building to its recognised windmill form and preserved it as a major local heritage landmark. In 2002 the mill was leased to Willesborough Windmill Trust, which became responsible for its care. The Friends of Willesborough Windmill continued restoration work and brought the mill back to working order. The surviving complex now presents the smock mill, miller's cottage, barn displays, and associated industrial heritage material within the Willesborough landscape.