STAINING WINDMILL
A Trip To Staining Village
After walking through Little Marton, my Lady and I stopped at one of the wayside gates to look at the vista before us, and there beyond the Mere we saw a welcome sight, Staining Mill with its sails swinging round. I felt almost like giving a cheer. For that was the first time I had seen it working for four years. During the war it had been idle, the miller had been away on Government work. It was a glad surprise for Eliza and I to see the old mill busy again.
When you turn down the hill past Little Marton Smithy, you have a grand view of the Fylde, with the Bleasdale and Longridge Moors in the background, on clear days.
At the corner there is a sign pointing directions to Blackpool and Poulton. At this corner where you take the Poulton road in order to get to Staining, the trees showed little buds but none are ever so advanced as that sheltered laburnum tree in the backyard of the Gazette & Herald," offices near, 'Little Marton Cemetary.'
On we walked along the long road, disturbed only by a big rabbit scampering across the road, to avoid two men prowling around a pond shooting. Occasionally we heard a the voice of a robin and at Staining a thrush was singing.
Beaneath this lane is the part of the old Roman road Freckleton and Kirkham to Poulton.
Near the Plough Inn and the village smithy, a by way branches off towards the Mere, and across the fields past, Whiney Heys Farm to Newton Drive and Blackpool. It's the best way and a lovely walk on a summer's day. But first let's have a look at the village, with its little school all bonny with rosy faced children playing in the yard and its church with its heavenly choir, the cottages and gardens and the walk up to the windmill.
STAINING MILL
My Lady and I walked along the main road and up to the windmill, to sample some of the delicious sweet meal it was crushing out of the Fylde oats. (a crop from a field not far from the mill) I told the miller how pleased we were to see the old mill working once more and he told us the tale of Jim Plesser the poacher who tricked the Poulton policeman.
Then the return journey was spent under a rosy, 'Windmill Land,' sunset as we watched the ruddy orange sun going down in the calm afternoon, as the cowman with his dog was bringing the cattle from the field, and the farmer's wife getting a lump of turf for the fire. We laughed at the comical spectacle of the hens roosting in the orchard trees.
A.Clarke Gazette & Herald
20 December 2007, shirley