Little Marton Windmill

This model is available to Cults3d

In some countries, the wind is so reliable you can build your windmill facing one direction. I believe the windmills on Mykonos are a famous example, facing north to catch the Meltemi.

In the UK, millers were not so luck, and windmills had to be built to turn to face the wind, whichever way it was blowing. One way to do that was a "post mill", in which the whole (or most of) the) body was turned. Because the grinding wheels were turned too, the mechanism to transmit power from the sails to the grinding wheels was kept simple.

A later development was the tower windmill, in which only the very top rotated. The required a way to transmit the power from the moving section to the stationary section. However, it did allow the mill to be built of stone or brick, so it could be significantly higher, and so catch more of the wind.

The windmill at Little Marton is a tower windmill, built in 1838, and it is thought there were originally four in the area, which is now part of Blackpool. A very similar mill still stands on the from at Lytham.

Not sure how obvious it is in the photos, but the roof bulges around the rotating mechanism, which was probably the trickiest bit to do, especially as it is tiled. The lattice modifier was the solution here!

Doors and windows were all created on the orthogonal axes and then rotated.