The Story of Marton Windmill and Oxford Hotel

Much of the information below came from the late Harold Monks and Philip Walsh, which is featured on the display boards facing Park Road at what was once known as Oxford Square.

The windmill, built of brick and rising to a height of five storeys, once stood as a prominent feature of the South Shore landscape. Its domed cap was rotated by means of a wheel and rope, a traditional mechanism that allowed the sails to face the wind. Among those who worked the mill was Thomas Moore, a figure locally remembered for his role in the early development of South Shore. Around 1819 he is believed to have begun laying out the first plots of land in the district, following a purchase made by Alexander Moore from John Forshaw, thereby contributing to the area’s transformation from open coastal land into a settled community.

Throughout the nineteenth century the mill underwent several repairs, one of the more detailed records noting an expenditure in 1841 of twenty-four pounds, nine shillings and five pence for maintenance. Despite such efforts, its usefulness gradually declined as newer methods of production and industrial milling took precedence. By the closing years of the century the structure had fallen into disuse, and around 1900 it was finally demolished. Although the building itself has vanished, its memory endures in local history as a reminder of the agricultural beginnings of South Shore before the rapid expansion of Blackpool turned the district into part of a thriving seaside resort.

Circa 1870 © Philip Walsh

Circa 1891 © Blackpool Central Library

Circa 1911 © Blackpool & Fylde Historical Society

Documentary evidence tracing the history of the mill site extends back to 14 February 1775, when Thomas Jolly purchased the property for the sum of one thousand four hundred pounds. The sale included a corn windmill together with a dwelling house, drying kiln, granaries, stables, and associated outbuildings, as well as two gardens. This acquisition marked the earliest recorded ownership of the site, which at that time functioned primarily as an agricultural and milling enterprise serving the surrounding rural district. By the 1840s the dwelling house had been adapted for use as a hostelry, opening under the name the Mill Inn. Throughout the nineteenth century the property changed ownership several times, reflecting the growing value of the land as the Blackpool area expanded. On 11 May 1876 ownership passed to Messrs Flitcroft, Grime and others, who undertook a significant redevelopment of the premises. During this period the house and adjoining inn were rebuilt, though elements of the original eighteenth-century structure were retained. Contemporary photographs reveal architectural continuity between the two versions of the building—most notably the position of the barn door at centre right and two adjoining doorways visible in an image taken around 1870, features that reappeared in a later view dating from approximately 1891.

Following its reconstruction the establishment was renamed the Oxford, though it was also locally referred to as the Halfway House, a title reflecting its position between the developing districts of Blackpool and St Anne’s. A further photograph taken (above) circa 1911 shows the same distinctive doorways rebuilt into the newer frontage, preserving traces of the original mill house within the evolving structure. The Oxford, born from a working mill and its associated farmhouse, thus embodied the transformation of the Fylde landscape from agricultural to leisure use, its fabric recording successive phases of local enterprise over more than a century of change.

Provided by Steve Gomersall

Circa 1930s © Saidman Brothers

Around 1929, Sam Henry Thomas established a motor garage adjacent to the Oxford Hotel, marking the beginning of a new phase in the site’s long history. The accompanying image below, believed to date from the mid-1930s, captures the garage during a period when private motoring was becoming increasingly popular across Britain. Thomas, widely known by his affectionate nickname “Square-dealing Old Sam Thomas,” earned a local reputation for integrity and enterprise. Over the years he developed a range of business interests in Blackpool, contributing to the town’s growing association with modern transport and leisure. By the time of his death in 1942, at the age of seventy-eight, he was remembered as one of the earliest residents of Blackpool to have owned a motor car—a distinction that linked him directly to the town’s transition from a Victorian resort to a modern seaside destination.

His garage by the Oxford Hotel stood as both a practical service for the increasing number of motorists visiting the area and a symbol of the new age of mobility that defined the interwar years on the Fylde Coast.