Mock windmills at Tulleys Tulip Fields, St AlbansOver winter 2024/25 I was driving along the M25 near St Albans, Hertfordshire, when I noticed a set of windmill sails that hadn't been there before. On further investigation, I found that these were on a newly built mock mill, part of the Tulleys Tulip Field attraction at Willows Farm. I didn't get to visit the attraction in 2025, but now that spring is here, and the tulips are in full flower, I've visited this year.
When your whole reason d'etre is to provide photo opportunities for Instagram influencers (and lesser mortals of course), then it seems like you should take a little care in your provision.
Thus, even though the (mock) windmill to be found at Tulley's Tulip Farm in Hertfordshire is clearly a simplified, even cartoon like representation of a supposed Dutch windmill, the fact that the sails are so obviously wrong is galling.
I can forgive the simplification of the sails to not have any weather (aerodynamic twist) to them, but mounting the sail frames behind the sail stocks, rather than in front of them is silly - even a cursory consideration would allow you to see that to resist the very wind that powers them, you want them on the front, not the back of the stocks.
Of course, to provide an eye-catching sight, you want the sails to be turning, and avoiding the need to provide aerodynamic sails, point them in the right direction, and allowing for windless periods, you probably instead arrange to drive them round with a motor. Sails with asymmetric sail frames turn with the smaller area preceding the larger area - the ones here are thus are being driven backwards by the motor!
The poor thought process involved also extends to the siting of the mill. The ideal front on view of the sails means that the background to the photo consists of the food truck encampment, rather than the farm's far more photogenic tulip fields.
It has to be said that the tulip fields themselves were impressive, with lots of different varieties. (The press pack claims 750,000 tulips have been planted, across 100 varieties). The Hertfordshire venue is pretty new, having opened just last year, so mostly the rows are a single variety, with just the occasional miscoloured bloom, where the planting from last year has presumably re-established itself. It's also claimed that there are a mixture of early, mid, and late varieties planted, so the expectation is that the floral display will continue through to May at least.
As well as the bulbs themselves, there are many other photo opportunities scattered throughout the site, including a Land Rover, tractors, a motor bike, mirrors, a number of frames ready for posed shots, and indeed another smaller mock windmill. Once again a little extra thought could have been worthwhile here - for example avoiding angling the photo frames so that the background points directly at the ugly electrical pylons that cross the site, and placing the second windmill where it is surrounded by tulips, rather than at the far edge of the farm. (The second windmill is new this year, and looking on Google Earth, it appears that the area of tulip planting has roughly doubled this year, so it's been placed at the very edge of the extended area).
These comments all arise from visiting Tulleys' Hertfordshire site - from online photos the other sites at Crawley and Warwick follow a similar pattern, but perhaps being longer established, they may have worked out the problems in those sites by now. (A video of the equivalent big windmill at the Crawley site for example shows the sails on it rotating in the correct direction).
As full disclosure, I was provided with a free "influencer" media ticket, to visit the farm this year.
| Last updated 15/04/2026 | Text and images © Mark Berry, 1997-2026 - |