A Short History of Marsh Mill

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Marsh Mill’s one of those buildings that, along with Lytham Mill, Staining Mill, Pilling Mill and Preesall Mill (watch this, somebody’s going to complain now because I haven’t featured their favourite Fylde pepper pot in that list) has become so much a part of our local heritage that the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian couldn’t ignore it any longer.
Besides, it’s not exactly difficult researching for an article like this. It’s all been said before. We like to think of it as ‘disposable history’.
Anyhow, Marsh Mill was designed and constructed by Ralph Slater (who also built Clifton and Pilling mills) on behalf of Bold Fleetwood Hesketh in 1794.
“Who was Bold Fleetwood Hesketh?” you might be asking. (Actually, you’re probably not, but we’re going to tell you anyway.)
He was the Lord of the Manor, (unmarried, apparently, but we’re not saying anything) at Rossall Hall and, obviously, he wanted a brand new windmill.
Marsh Mill was big and brash for its day, packed with all the latest milling inventions such as self-regulating sails (whatever they were) and a rotating cap that lined up the ‘sweeps’ with the wind. The bricks were produced from local clay by hand.

It wasn’t the first mill in Thornton, however. A watermill is recorded in documents from 1245 as belonging to Alice de Singleton, whilst ‘New Mill’ is included on Yates’s map of 1786 just north of Bourne. (Have you noticed how, nowadays, I’ve started adding an extra ‘s’ after the apostrophe in possessive nouns? When did that particular grammatical rule change? Presumably when some illiterate grammar book writer made a stupid mistake but wouldn’t admit to getting it wrong. Still…I digress.)
We reckon that New Mill originally stood beneath the plastic dragon at Farmer Parr’s. There won’t be anything left of it to excavate nowadays, of course, A couple of decades ago the government insisted that some water tank or other was sunk into the ground on the exact same spot. So much for local heritage.
In 1896 Marsh Mill was sold to Parkinson Tomlinson, Poulton Corn Merchants. The manager at the time was Edmund Freeborn who allegedly painted the outside of the mill one year later to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, along with the sails and fan tail, without any scaffolding. The Health and Safety people would be throwing an epileptic fit if he tried that on today.

Marsh Mill stopped producing flour in 1922 (the last miller, with a certain amount of serendipity, being Mr George Bunn) and by the 1930s had been converted into tearooms. An advert from this period informs us that: “Ham and Eggs, a Pot of Tea and Bread and Butter” would set the hungry visitor back by 2/-, whilst rooms were let for: “Picnic, Wedding and other Parties”.
Apparently the mill also possessed a: “Parking Ground for Patrons’ Cars and Char-a-bancs.” “Sweets, Chocolates, Mineral Waters and Novelties” were readily available. All of which information, now that I come to think about, can be seen in the actual advert below.


The mill was sold into private hands, despite public protestations, in 2004, but is still open to visitors. If you’re particularly lucky, on the day that you visit, the machinery (seen below) might actually be working; an ideal opportunity to boot some noisy kid who doesn’t understand the meaning of the words, “Stop pratting around and behave!” into the cogs for the full ‘milling experience’.