Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
How 150 years of history went up in flames
Built in 1792 at a cost of £8,000, the Abbots Mill burnt to the ground in an unstoppable inferno in 1933. For nearly 150 years it was the second largest building in Canterbury - behind, of course, the Cathedral.
The 100ft high six-storey building with an octagonal turret was designed by John Smeaton. It stood where Radigund Street bridge now crosses a branch of the Stour.
Two water wheels, each 16ft in diameter, produced 500 quarters of corn (6.3 tonnes) every week - despite a drop in water level only a little more than 5ft.
Owners of the mill during Victorian times included James Simmons - founder of the Kentish Gazette - and the artist Sydney Cooper, who purchased it when he married the miller’s daughter Mary Cannon. There is no evidence that Cooper had any interest in milling or (as often asserted) in painting views from the octagonal look-out. He was simply easing the finances of his father-in-law.
In the years leading up to the devastating fire, there was a young miller in charge of the facility. He describes how they avoided walking up five flights of stairs by hanging on to the rising bags of grain, banging through trap doors as they went. He also mentions night shift work when, if the miller dozed off, the gearwheels slowed to the point where water backed up and flooded the street at Eastbridge.
All that now remains of Smeaton’s mill is the spindle of one of the wheels and two iron pillars. Eagle-eyed visitors may also be able to spot the the water height stone, which was set to gauge the water level as it entered the mill.
The nearby ‘Mill House’ reflects key architectural features of Smeaton’s mill, including a pretend lookout on top and timber cladding below.
■ Information used with the kind permission of Canterbury Historical and Archaelogical Society (CHAS) www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk.