1900s-1945
Leigh is unusual among Kent villages in having had three windmills within living memory. One of them was a working flour mill, standing behind what is now Mill Garage, on the ground behind Dr Glaisher's house. Milling is recorded on that spot as far back as 1820, making it by far the oldest of the three.
The other two mills both stood in the same garden at Stocks Green, at a property known today as The Old Barn, though it has also gone by the memorable name of Oceans of Cream. Both arrived thanks to Commander Tomlinson, who transformed the site during the 1920s and 1930s. He had an eye for the new breed of visitor arriving by car, and he furnished the Old Barn with buildings brought in from elsewhere. He also laid out a small airstrip, and was rarely seen without a parrot perched on his shoulder.
The first of his mills came from Sidley, near Bexhill, in 1929. It was a smock mill that had ground corn, and once re-erected at Stocks Green it lasted only about eight years before falling into neglect. It survived long enough, however, to experience a near miss from a bomb during the Second World War, and its remains stood behind the main barn until the structure finally collapsed in 1963. Photographs of it survive in the Kent Photo Archive.
The second mill was imported shortly before the War, this time from Grundisburgh in Suffolk. It was a drainage-type pumping mill, built for raising water rather than grinding anything, and was weather-boarded, standing about 18 feet tall and eight feet across at the base. Whether it ever did any useful work at Stocks Green is not clear. By 1959 it was completely ruined, and a photograph taken that year records its sorry state.
It is possible that the ruins of both Stocks Green mills lingered on into the 1960s. The story of the moved Sidley mill was written up by Gareth Hughes, whose article was kindly supplied by David Forster. This account appeared in the Parish Magazine in June 2014, and a copy is kept in the local history archive.