Marsh Mill

THORNTON CLEVELEYS

30/1/16 FLEETWOOD ROAD 24-MAR-50 MARSH MILL

II*

Tower windmill and attached drying kiln. Mill dated 1794, by Ralph Slater. Altered c.1850 and in 1896, extensive repair in 1964, and restored to full working order 1986-90. Drying kiln fully rebuilt 1988-89. EXTERIOR: Tapering brick tower, with attached kiln house to right. MILL TOWER rendered, on circular plan. 5 storeys and rotating boat-shaped wooden cap with 8-bladed fantail and 4 double-sided patent sails of traditional Lancashire type, renewed in 1989. Tower encircled at 2nd floor level by wooden staging with railings, supported by timber props resting on projecting stone corbels at 1st floor level. Windows generally square: 4 on ground floor, 5 on 1st floor, 3 on each of the 3 upper floors. Plain stone-cased doorway at ground floor, south side; 2 doors onto staging, on north and south sides. Inscriptions: "Marsh Mill" on west and east sides of top floor; and "Bold Fleetwood Hesketh 1794" on lintel of main door. Attached DRYING KILN of 2 storeys with small gabled ridge ventilator and and first floor taking-in door which penetrates the eaves, below steeply-pitched dormer roof. INTERIOR: Main internal machinery intact and restored to working order. The mill cap turns on a dead curb, with skid plates attached to the top of the tower. The cap is centred on a well plate, and encloses a clasp-arm brake wheel, with cast-iron gear teeth added in 1896. Octagonal clasp-arm wallower set at the top of the mill's upright shaft has similarly modified gearing as does the spur wheel at the shaft base. From this wheel a short horizontal shaft drives 2 belt pullies which power a sack hoist and grain dressing machinery on the floor below. The main drive powers 4 sets of stones on the 3rd floor (stone floor). 3 sets of stones are controlled by belt-driven governers. 2nd floor (meal floor)with belt-driven countershaft to power a bolter and a reciprocating sieve. HISTORY: The mill was originally equipped with common sails, and chain and wheel winding gear. By the mid-C19, a 4 bladed fantail had been fitted, and in 1896, local millwright Dick Blezzard installed patent sails, a cast iron windshaft and cast-iron gear teeth. The mill remained operational until 1922.

Marsh Mill is of special architectural interest as a late C18 tower windmill with attached kiln house. It retains all of its machinery, much of which dates to the original installation, and was restored to full working order in 1986-90. It is an exceptionally complete example of a tower windmill in a national context, and represents a highly significant specialist industrial building type, once nationally widespread. Marsh Mill is thought to be now the only mechanically complete example of its type in north-west England.