Stanford Windmill Stanford · Kent · England

Stanford Windmill was built in 1851 by John Hill of Ashford for John Hogben. Hill's firm was one of the major millwrighting businesses in the area and worked on windmills and watermills across Kent and Sussex. The mill is a brick tower corn mill of five storeys, with a cylindrical base containing the first two floors and a tapering upper section above. Its form is unusual for Kent, a county better known for smock mills, and one internal beam preserves a rare carved inscription commemorating the date and builder.

The mill formerly had a Kentish-type cap, four patent sails carried on a cast-iron windshaft, fantail winding, and a stage at first-floor level. It drove four pairs of millstones, two steel mills, and two roller mills. The machinery included a composite brake wheel with iron arms and a wooden rim, a cast-iron wallower, and a cast-iron great spur wheel, with the millstones driven overdrift.

The working history continued into the twentieth century. J Fox, Thomas Rolfe, Henry Taylor, G R Holt, H Beresford Lye, and M Hancock & Son are among the named millers and operators. The tower was cracked when a bomb fell nearby during the First World War. A single-cylinder paraffin engine was fitted between the wars and was replaced by a Ruston & Hornsby oil engine in 1936. New pairs of sails were fitted in 1925, 1930, and 1936. The mill worked by wind until 1946, when the sail shutters were removed. Milling continued under engine and then electric power until 1969. In 1961 the sails and cap roof were removed and a corrugated asbestos roof was built on the cap frame. Some milling furniture was later used in the restoration of Draper's Mill at Margate. The windmill is Grade II* listed because of its rare survival of original machinery and fittings, its architectural interest, and its rarity as one of the surviving Kent tower mills.