Wind Engines in Britain

Surviving windmills

1	no image	.	-	Crux Easton, Hampshire	Wind engine by John Wallis Titt	magnificently restored in 2002
2	no image	.	-	The Bob Morse collection, Repps, Norfolk	a collection of restored wind engines	-
3	no image	.	-	Amberley working Museum, near Arundel, West Sussex	wind engine by Duke & Ockenden of Littlehampton	-
4	no image	.	-	Old Kiln Museum, Tilford, Farnham, Surrey	hybrid wind engine, consisting of a Climax mechanism on a Duke & Ockenden tower	-
5	no image	.	-	Charterhouse monastery, Horsham, Sussex	Éolienne Bollée No.1	substantially complete; restoration under consideration
6	no image	.	-	Calbourne watermill, Isle of Wight		-
7	no image	.	-	Halstead House Farm, Halstead, Tilton-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire	19th Century wind engine	-

Historical locations

Bury St Edmunds

John Wallis Titt wind engine

[info]

Chilworth Friary, Killarney, Ireland

Duke & Ockenden

[info]

Creech St Michael, Somerset

Halladay's patent design of 1854, as manufactured by Bury and Pollard, Pollard Jephson and Co., Owens and Co. and others. The last examples to survive complete were Angmering (now gone) and Iwade (now restored by Bob Morse). Halstead House Farm, Leicestershire, partially surviving, was another one of the same type.

[photo] [photo]

Hawkinge, Kent

[info]

Hinton Charterhouse, Avon

John Wallis Titt wind engine

[info]

Marchwood Yacht Club, Southampton

Postcode: SO40 4UX

John Wallis Titt wind engine - purchased 1873 for £155, now long since disappeared

[info]

Mow Cop, Staffordshire

John Wallis Titt wind engine

[info] The UK does not have the wide open prairies to be found in the USA, Australia, or South Africa, and as such did not have huge quantities of the metal windpumps which these countries tend to associate with the word "windmill".

In the UK, these machines are generally called "wind engines", to distinguish them from our windmills which (predominantly) grind grain.

Wind engines have 4 main distinguishing features:

a tower which is empty of machinery, but just serves to raise the wind catching mechanism into the wind
fairly small power output
a simple design suited to mass production
an annular sail

Manufacturers

John Wallis Titt

The wind engines made by John Wallis Titt were some of the finest British made wind engines.

[history] [The company today] [history (earlier location)] [company archives] [Simplex engine]

Duke & Ockenden of Littlehampton

Duke & Ockenden, commonly known as DANDO, produced wind engines from at least 1869-1914. They still exist, but now are mostly concerned with specialist drilling for water etc.

[company history] [company archives]

Bibliography

Bibliotheca Molinologica irregular publications of TIMS.
- Volume 3. J. Kenneth Major (ed.): The Windmills of John Wallis Titt. 37 pp. (1977).
- Volume 8. J. Kenneth Major; Gaucheron André: The Eolienne Bollée. 66 pp. (1985).
Rolt Memorial Lecture, 1990 'Wind Engines' (J.K. Major), AIA Industrial Archaeology Review vol XIV p55 onwards
The Éoliènne Bolée at St. Hugh's Monastery, Cowfold. Nick Kelly, and Ron Martin (1999). Newsl Sussex Ind Archaeol Soc, 102, page 2
The Competitive Testing of Wind Engines, J. Kenneth Major, TIMS 10th International Symposium on Molinology, 2000
Wind Engines, Suffolk Mills Group newsletter No 74, May 1999 p12-13
Barn-Top Mills: A study of the agricultural wind engine, Gareth Hughes, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Mill Research Conference 1996 ISBN 0 9509758 9 3.
The Smaller English Windpump, Gareth Hughes, Proceedings of the Fifteenth Mill Research Conference ISBN 0 9530049 1 0.

Gazetteer

Map of all mills - Download to Google Earth

Last updated 8th October 2003

Wind Engines in Britain

Surviving windmills

Historical locations

Bury St Edmunds

Chilworth Friary, Killarney, Ireland

Creech St Michael, Somerset

Hawkinge, Kent

Hinton Charterhouse, Avon

Marchwood Yacht Club, Southampton

Mow Cop, Staffordshire

Manufacturers

John Wallis Titt

Duke & Ockenden of Littlehampton

Other links

Bibliography

Gazetteer