The Old Smock Mill

How a former English flour mill became a couple’s bespoke home.

- KIRSTY MCNEIL-O'CONNOR

Access to the Old Smock Mill is via a flight of external oak steps up to the staging. This broad oak-boarded platform, which encircles the mill, has been constructed to the original design and allows visitors to follow the sun all day until it sinks.

The homeowners are keen gardeners, and over the years they have created a magical garden surrounding the mill.

Leisurely lunches and suppers can be enjoyed at the garden table, and chairs provide views over the owners’ wisteria-clad walk and flower garden

Situated in the quintessentially English village of Benenden in Kent is the former Old Smock Mill. Once a working flour mill, built in the early 1800s, it was left to fall into disrepair, a run-down reminder of the area’s industrial past.

The Old Smock Mill had its sweeps (often known as sails), cap and fantail for many years after it was decommissioned, but the elements soon destroyed the wood. The cap was taken down in the early 1970s, leaving only the tower, as the sweeps had gone to the local mill in Headcorn. The building was close to collapse when Clare and David Winchester bought their house in 2004.

“The derelict mill was in the garden of the property we wanted to buy,” says Clare. “We loved the house and the garden—the mill was just the icing on the cake for us. The opportunity to own a mill was just too good to pass up.”

But it was a while before any work was done to restore the building. “We started working on it in 2011, though we had been planning for it for years. I think it really helps to live with a place and really think about it before you start working on it.”