A 20ft high steel scale model of Blackpool Tower sold for £700 (all sold figures +15%BP) at an antiques sale at Littleton Auctions, near Evesham, on Saturday 12 July. The buyer is from Lancashire. It was consigned from a West Midlands collection which included a pair of Wellington Bomber wheels (which did not sell), some Spitfire wheels and parts which fetched £10, and other militaria. Also in the auction was a K6, in poor shape, which made £470, and an Austin Gypsy which sold for £50.
 
The real Blackpool Tower is 518ft high, around half the height of the Eiffel Tower which it was emulating, so the auctioned model tower was 1/25th scale. The Blackpool Tower was completed in 1894 to designs by James Maxwell and Charles Tuke, Heenan & Froude of Worcester structural engineers, using the new-fangled hydraulic riveting by Fielding & Platt of Gloucester, and used 2,500 tonnes of iron and 93 tones of cast steel. It had not been painted, so between 1921 and 1924 all the steelwork in the structure was replaced and renewed.
 
Between 1941 and the end of World War Two, at a 1.5m sqft factory employing 10,000 people at Squires Gate on the outskirts of Blackpool, Vickers produced a total of 3,841 Wellington bombers all of which were test flown from nearby Blackpool Airport's existing runways. Blackpool also provided a base for Spitfire fighters which were protecting the nearby city of Liverpool from raiding German bombers. Incidentally, immediately after the war Vickers went on to build aluminium prefabs at Squires Gate employing 4,000 people from 1946 - 1947 probably to the AIROH (Aircraft Industries Research Organisation for Housing) system, of which 53,000 were built, each in four sections which took one day to assemble on site. The prefabs had two bedrooms; a living room; hallway; fitted kitchen, with hot and cold running water, cooker (gas or electric) and built-in refrigerator; and a fitted bathroom with a heated towel rail. The coal fire in the living room had a back boiler which heated water for the bathroom and kitchen and also provided ducted warm air to the bedrooms. The kitchen was planned to make the most efficient use of the space available. It included a cooker, boiler and a fridge - a luxury for most people at that time. A house could be built every 12 minutes.
 
Strangely, considering its strategic importance, Blackpool and Squires Gate, and more importantly to Hitler, Blackpool Tower and its three seaside piers, were saved from being blitzed by the Luftwaffe because, allegedly, Adolf had a vision that after the successful defeat of Britain, he would fly a giant Nazi flag from the top of Blackpool Tower, parade his soldiers down the Golden Mile esplanade, and use Blackpool as a holiday resort for occupying Germans.
 
According to Littleton's MD and auctioneer, Martin Homer, the model Blackpool Tower was never painted, weighed about a third of a tonne, was in two pieces with the top section removable, and may have been known as the Wellington Tower, because of its connection with the Vickers bomber.