IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Windmill Rise, BLACKPOOL, FY4 4FE

Heading north west towards Blackpool.

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On this day, the superb Windmill was open to the public ... with a chance to see the workings and buy buns as well !!! Great stuff and good luck to the volunteers. Image Image Image Image Image

The Gears and Cogs and Shafts are painted in different colours to help the Volunteers explain what drives what and why ... nice and simple and clear ... and a good idea. Image Image Image Image Image

The mechanism has been restored and is almost complete. The red-brown shaft is coupled to the sails through a bearing at the right hand end. The natural wood brake wheel is clamped by the white brake, to prevent the sails rotating. The green wallower gear engages with teeth (missing) on the brake wheel, to transfer the power to the blue vertical shaft. The cap is rotated by the fantail, via the yellow luffing gears which engage with the red circular rack on top of the wall. Two out of four white rollers are visible, which maintain the alignment of the cap and rack. See http://www.littlemartonwindmill.org.uk/

On a damp day in May, dandelions have taken over from daffodils, and the windmill is almost invisible against the sky. See http://www.littlemartonwindmill.org.uk/

Little Marton Mill is a 19th-century English tower windmill in Marton, Blackpool. It is situated on a green at the side of Preston New Road (A538), close to the M55 motorway and is a familiar landmark on this major route into the resort. The last remaining of several gristmills in the area, Little Marton Mill was built in 1838 by millwright John Hays, on the site of a previous mill. It stopped working in September 1928 was restored in 1937 given to the Allen Clarke Memorial Fund as a memorial to local teacher, writer and windmill enthusiast Allen Clarke (1863–1935). In 1955, the mill passed into the care of Blackpool Corporation. It was extensively renovated in 1987. Little Marton Mill is of a style which is typical for windmills built in the Fylde. On four storeys (including a basement), it has a circular plan and a broad base in proportion to its height. It is constructed of stuccoed, whitewashed brick. There are four sails and a fantail with eight blades. Typically for Fylde windmills, the cap (replaced in 1987) is boat-shaped. It is designated as a grade II Listed Building (English Heritage ID:183668 http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-183668-little-marton-mill-non-civil-parish- British Listed Buildings). In the listing, English Heritage describe it as “an exceptionally complete example of a tower windmill in a national context, and represents a highly significant specialist industrial building type, once nationally widespread” The machinery is incomplete as some of it is now at Image http://www.littlemartonwindmill.org.uk/ Friends of little Marton Windmill