A short history of the windmills of Margate

By the late Jo Davis of IOTAS

This article is dedicated to Jo Davis, who was a popular and long-serving member and committee member of the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society who sadly died in December 2019.

Windmills have been a feature of the Thanet landscape since the Middle Ages, replacing watermills as a means of grinding corn into flour until their demise in the mid-twentieth century. Thomas Elmham’s map of 1414 shows a windmill near to a beacon mound in Birchington. Originally the wind was used as the power source for operating these, but later they were driven by gas or electricity.

Over four centuries thirty-nine mills were known to have existed at different times in the whole of Thanet, never fewer than five at any time. Only one survives and is operational, known as Draper’s Mill, it is situated on the path running between Margate and

St Peters and is open to visitors during the summer months.

Draper’s Mill

Draper’s Mill was built by John Holman of Canterbury, millwright of many experiences, in 1845 and is a four-storey smock mill on a single- storey brick base. It replaced an earlier mill which was said to have been moved there from Nayland Rock, but a map of 1792 shows a mill both at Westbrook and Drapers. An indenture of 1774 notes a windmill present in that area, but its fate is not known. A windmill is recorded at that site since 1695.

The present mill is the sole survivor of a group of three, Draper’s Mill (known as the Old Mill), Little Draper’s Mill and the Pumper.

The Old Mill was the first to be built and was worked by wind until 1916 when it was powered instead by a twenty-horsepower gas engine. The sails and fantail were removed in 1927. It stood on its own until about 1869 when Little Draper’s, a second smock mill was brought from Barham and rebuilt. Each section was numbered to ensure the accurate re-erection by T. R. Holman and survived until 1929 when it was dismantled.

The Pumper was a large tower mill erected about 1874 for Margate Corporation for pumping water and built by Hill of Ashford, initially with five sweeps but, following a severe gale and subsequent repairs costing £280 resulted in a four-sweep mill. In 1894 it was again damaged by high winds, and the estimated cost of further repairs of £275 was deemed too much, and it was left standing, with only its tower for many years until it was eventually taken down.

The surviving Draper’s Mill was threatened with demolition in 1965.

Still, the Draper’s Windmill Trust was formed by the then Headmaster of Draper’s Mills School, Mr R.M Towes to preserve the mill and in 1968 it was acquired by Kent Education Authority and restored at the cost of £2,000. The fantail was replaced in 1970, and one pair of sails was erected in December 1971, another pair fitted in the autumn of 1974.

Above

Fig 1: The late Jo Davis, of IOTAS

Left

Fig 2: Draper’s Mill

Hooper’s Windmills

Captain Stephen Hooper, a retired mariner and much respected man of Margate, was responsible for the erection of two windmills in the town of Margate. The first of these was his most controversial Horizontal Mill built in 1780 in Zion Place, on land which is currently Aldi’s car park, ten years after the patent was registered and following his success with a similar construction at Battersea.

Instead of having external sails, it consisted of a wooden tower with louvred sides which could be opened in sections to allow the wind to pass through the structure, turning the internal horizontally mounted wheel. The mill was designed to work five pairs of grinding wheels simultaneously, and the whole structure stood sixty feet high, giving an imposing appearance. In 1880 a severe north- westerly gale took off the whole of the top of the tower, containing a second driving wheel and all its component machinery, weighing about five tons, blowing it over the Prospect Hotel and coming to rest in Hanover Place, undamaged. That portion of the mill was never replaced, and for the rest of its life, it operated with a single driving wheel.

In 1801 the mill was sold to John and John Webb Pilcher, who in turn sold it to Edward Pilcher, who then sold it in 1816 to Francis and William Cobb, bankers who probably purchased it intending to develop the land around it. It was rented and worked by Kingsford, the Canterbury millers until 1827 when its machinery was dismantled and removed leaving just the empty shell. This was destroyed by a bomb during the second world war, leaving only the circular floor of the old mill which was finally eradicated during a clearance scheme in that area. Hooper’s Horizontal Mill can be seen in one of J.M.W. Turner’s paintings of Margate entitled ‘Picturesque views on the south coast 1804’

The second of Hooper’s windmills was a post mill, built in 1793 which stood in a field off Northdown Road, where until recently Woolworth’s stood, sharing the same land as mills owned and worked by Daniel Gouger. The fate of this mill is not known, but it had a lease of 60 years and had disappeared by 1820.

Gouger’s Mills

Three smock mills stood in a field, until recently the site occupied by Woolworth’s, which became known as Gouger’s Mills. They were situated in an area surrounded by a low flint wall bounded on the north by Northdown Road and on the west by Wilderness Hill and were working in 1805, possibly built some time before 1800, although not by Gouger who was born in 1800. The most westerly one was just east of Wilderness Hill and lay behind the old windmill cottage where Gouger lived, notably Upper Clifton Road facing what is now the top of Edgar Road. The second mill stood at a point about opposite the old Cameo Cinema, while the third occupied the site which was to become the playground of Stanley House School in Clarendon Road.

Daniel Gouger purchased the mills from George Staner in 1825, and they were said to have been built by John and John Webb Pilcher sometime between 1796 and 1820. One of them was built as a replacement for Hooper’s Post mill which had been removed.

A deed of 1821 tells that Pilcher pulled down a mill and replaced it with a new one. The site was then sold to Edward Boys, John Swinford and Daniel Jarvis who then sold it to George Staner.

The most westerly of the mills was destroyed by fire on February 13th, 1836 and it was generally felt that the fire was a deliberate act caused by local smugglers to draw attention away from the beach at Palm Bay where they were unloading a valuable hoard. The plan was successful, and a smuggler, Carver Lawrence, who was a carpenter by trade, when sentenced to transportation for another smuggling incident swore at his trial that if he ever returned, he would name the culprits responsible for the mill fire. He never returned.

The two remaining mills, known as East and West mills, were sold to a Mr Andrews who let them fall into disuse and after twenty years they were auctioned off. One fetched

£55 and the other £100. They were dismantled, the timber sold locally, and the machinery taken to Holman’s works at Canterbury and used in different mills.

Top

Fig 3: Thanet College circa 1880 showing three windmills at Drapers on St Peters Footpath

The Town Mills

Margate had two town mills, one near to St John’s Church in Church Street which was known to working in 1889 and demolished in the late 19th century; the other situated in the street still known as Mill Lane. Arthur Rowe, past historian stated that it was a “going concern in 1681 for it is mentioned in C. E. Doughty deeds of property on the north side of Mill Lane” (C. Mills 1986,

A. Rowe “Mills in the Rate Book) This latter mill was pulled down in 1772 by John Cowell “because the many new houses recently built has prevented the wind from reaching the sails”. It was moved by Cowell “to the lands of the future Thanet House*” (C. Mills 1986) and was finally pulled down in 1789.

*Possibly the Thanet House at the southern end of Addiscombe Road, by the double roundabout. Editor.

The decline of the Windmills in Thanet

Many Mills were concentrated on the Isle of Thanet, reputed to be one of the most fertile places in Britain and famous for its barley and corn and at one time the leading distributor of corn to the London Markets.

The decline occurred in the latter part of the 19th century as they were only capable of producing wholemeal flour which had become less popular with the consumer who wanted fine flour known as “Mark” flour. Some of the mills turned to grind animal foods. Still, most large farms had their grinding equipment and with the advent of the railway and later motorised transport, flour and grain were easily distributed in vast quantities all around the country, thus making the local mills redundant. They were closed, their timber and machinery sold or they were just left to rot. The few remaining are a reminder of a time when life moved at a more leisurely pace.

References:

Watermills and Windmills William Coles Finch 1976 edition www.millsarchive.com

Windmills of Thanet C. Mills 1986 Crown Copyright

Margate Historical Society September 2009 www.margatehandbook.co.uk

R/U774/T440, 3 windmills on road from Margate to West Northdown www.imagesofengland.org.uk

R/U774/T487, Margate, 2 windmills, one called Drapers 1866

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2013 edition of

Earthworm, Vol.9 No.6. Ed. G. Taylor.