NHER 58718 (Monument record) - Morse's Wind Engine Park

An important collection of wind engines and marsh drainage equipment assembled by the late R. D. Morse. The collection includes the following:

F. Littlewood and Sons windpump from Iwade, Kent from a design patented by D. Halladay in 1854 (US) and 1856 (UK) - the first commercially successful patented designs for a mass-produced wind-powered machine. Built around 1890 and originally used to supply water to cattle troughs. It was in use until WWII and was moved to its present location in 1999. This is the only known complete surviving example built to this design.

Monitor 'Vaneless' wind engine from Scots Bluff, Nebraska, USA. A design dating from c.1870.

John Wallis Titt 'Woodcock' wind engine of c.1890 from Blackheath, Aldeburgh, Suffolk.

John Wallis Titt 'Simplex' wind engine from Leiston, Suffolk. This engine was constructed in 1921-22 to drain coastal marshes. It replaced a smock mill which had blown over in a storm and it drove the scoopwheel of the earlier mill. It was used until the late 1940s and collapsed in 1977.

Replica American wind engine. Typical of the early American wind engines and fairly close copy of a 'Regulator' wind engine.

Thomas and Son 'Climax' wind engine. A small and late example from a farm in Devon.

Wakes and Lamb 'Newark' wind engine. Originally constructed at Wormald Green near Harrogate in 1928. It was moved to Dorset in 1948 and was used to supply water for farm purposes.

'Southern Cross' engine. A modern wind engine, imported from Australia in 1998.

Powered scoopwheel originally from an engine house at the head of the Whitlingham sewage dyke on the former Whitlingham/Kirby Bedon parish boundary (NHER 33763). The scoopwheel was rescued when the building was demolished in 1989.

Holmes of Norwich semi-portable steam engine rescued from a now-demolished engine house in Hemsby (NHER 8584).

Information largely derived from (S1) which includes further details of the collection.
A. Yardy (HES), 22 February 2013.