Willesborough Windmill

New Mill was built in 1869 by John Hill, the Ashford millwright, replacing an earlier smock mill. The mill was worked by the Cornes family until the First World War, and by the Manwaring family from 1920 until 1938 when the mill last worked by wind. The mill was then sold to T Denne and Sons and used for storage. The fantail was sold to Barham mill in 1946 and installed on that mill. In 1969 the mill was bought by Tom Robbins and remained in his ownership until it was bought, in a very dilapidated state, and fully restored in 1991 to its former glory by Ashford Borough Council for the benefit of the citizens of Ashford and the public at large. The mill makes its own stoneground wholemeal…

New Mill is a four-storey smock mill on a two-storey brick base with an attached miller's cottage. It has four patent sails carried on a cast-iron windshaft. It drives four pairs of millstones by wind, with a fifth pair powered by an auxiliary engine. This was a steam engine until 1911, then an oil engine and latterly an electric motor. The Brake Wheel is of composite construction, with an iron centre and wooden rim. This drives a cast-iron Wallower on the Upright Shaft, which carries a cast-iron Great Spur Wheel, which drives the millstones overdrift.