The Windmill, Dartford

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Roger Button left this review about The Windmill

The Windmill was built in 1773 as a farm building and had effectively been a pub since 1780 when it was first granted an ale licence. For the past 40 years it had barely changed beyond a lick of paint now and again and for much of that period the pub was part of the Courage group with Bert & Cynthia Austin as the long standing custodians.

I was a regular here myself for nearly 10 years during which time some of Dartford's roughest would happily mix shoulder to shoulder with local businessmen and locals, all kept firmly in line under Bart & Cynthia’s watchful eye. There were 3 darts teams (2 male, 1 female), quiz teams, card schools, Sunday meat raffles, even shove ha'penny evenings. Many of the regulars, including myself did shifts behind the bar and it was a real community pub and often packed with local characters. In the years since Bert & Cynth departed (victims of the big pub upheaval of the early 90's), there were a succession of dubious landlords and all the regulars have either passed on or moved on leaving just the bare shell of this once hospitable tavern.

In the final years I would pop in occasionally for a nostalgic peep and there were rarely more than half a dozen people in the pub, none of whom could be described as particularly wholesome characters. There were never any Real Ales (I didn’t really care in those days), just basic keg bitters, lagers, Guinness etc which in the current climate probably didn’t help to diversify the customer base beyond the lager drinkers and food never really extended beyond a few rolls and a packet of peanuts.

The pub closed at the tail end of 2010 and, after being totally gutted, has now reopened as a Funeral Parlour. It was quite apt that the framed history of the pub and list of previous landlords that used to adorn the wall ended with Bert as that was when the pub really finished as a going concern. Sadly both Bert & Cynth have since moved to the great upstairs bar and I wouldn’t like to think what they would have made of the pub’s demise in the years after they left.

On 19^th April 2011 - no rating submitted
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