One of my customers let me copy three pictures of the mill that he had just bought this week. Click here to see them
Grange Road Mill An early mill stood at Ramsgate in 1719. Then, in 1819-43, as evidenced by the early Ordnance Map, there were two standing. One of them must have disappeared many years ago, for the 1858-72 map does not show it and there was no sign of it in 1905 although remaining mill was still there, by 1930 the body of the remaining mill was completely gone and the wreckage of the base alone remained. This base was then being used as a motor garage. Its “black-timbered walls are smothered with advertisement posters. Grimy mechanics grapple with cars in its bowels.” To quote William Coles Finch the notable antiquary and mill historian.
My understanding is that the mill formerly stood on the East Cliff on ground between what is now Victoria Road and Albion Road. There is an old flint cottage which was originally part of the mill complex (presumably used as a grain store) although it has been a residence since the late 18th century when the mill was apparently dismantled and re-erected on the Grange Road site.
ReplyDeleteI live in the cottage and when we were doing some floorboard replacement in one of the bedrooms we found ears of wheat as debris under the floor.
I assume that as Mount Albion House was built adjacent to the site in the very late 1700s it would have been considered inappropriate to have an actual windmill right next to a house which was to be inhabited by gentry.
I have published a bit about the early history of the mill from my publication From Wind to Power by Len Grey click here to read it.
ReplyDelete