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Site overview

Bank Mill at Bretherton is a former tower corn mill in west Lancashire. Specialist windmill records identify it as a tower mill, now converted to domestic use. The mill is associated with an eighteenth-century date and forms part of the former wind-powered milling landscape of the lowland agricultural district between the Ribble and the Douglas.

Its present character is that of a house-converted tower mill rather than a working mill. Although detailed working chronology is limited, the surviving structure preserves the principal tower form and the historic Bank Mill name. It remains a recognisable windmill survival within the Bretherton area.

Map

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History

Bank Mill is a former tower windmill at Bretherton. It is recorded in specialist Lancashire windmill lists as a tower corn mill and is associated with an eighteenth-century date, with 1741 given in Lancashire windmill listings. The mill belonged to a landscape in which wind power was used for agricultural corn milling across the flat and open country of west Lancashire.

The mill later lost its original working function and was converted to domestic use. Its present survival is therefore architectural and landscape-based rather than operational. The house conversion has preserved the principal tower form, allowing the former mill to remain legible as a windmill even though the working sails, cap, and machinery are no longer the focus of the site record.

Bank Mill is now best understood as a converted tower mill survival. Its importance lies in the continuity of the historic mill name, the survival of the tower fabric, and its representation of Bretherton's wind-powered milling history within the wider Lancashire windmill landscape.

Timeline

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Converted to house

The former tower mill was converted to domestic use while retaining the visible windmill tower form.
1741

Bank Mill recorded

Bank Mill is recorded as an eighteenth-century tower corn mill at Bretherton.

Sources and records

Windmill World site entry
Lancashire windmill list