Wind Engines in Britain

Historical locations

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

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

Duke & Ockenden of Littlehampton

[company history] [company archives]

Other links

• British Wind Engine manufacturers
• Windpumps on the Kent and East Sussex Light Railway
• Éolienne Bollée a French manufacturer

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 Éoliènne Bolée. 66 pp. (1985).
• Rolt Memorial Lecture, 1990 'Wind Engines' (J.K. Major), AIA Industrial Archaeology Review vol XIV p55 onwards
• The Éolienne Bollée 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.

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