http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/ Mill Writing Blog en ron@stonenut.demon.co.uk Copyright 2008 2008-12-29T22:55:59+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/mill_news_from_william_hill_29_dec_2008/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/mill_news_from_william_hill_29_dec_2008/#When:21:55:59Z William has circulated links this month on a Dutch mill image library, a Canadian windmill and UK mills in Crosby, Brill and the Peak District. There is a plug for "Remembering Three Mills" and of course, Wallace and Gromit - required viewimg for all Health & Safety personnel. The full details follow:http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/nl/items/RIJK01:SK-A-3082/&p=26&i=1&st=molen&sc=%28%27molen%27%20%2A%29%20and%20%28type%20any%20%27image%20video%20audio%20text%27%29/&wst=molen Dutch Image library. Pictures very large scale using ‘Zoom’ facility http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/westisland/story.html?id=669fe8b7-cac4-41b1-b505-62e0495a0782 (Canadian windmill) http://www.crosbyherald.co.uk/news/crosby-news/2008/11/27/crosby-s-landmark-windmill-set-for-a-full-blown-facelift-68459-22348880/ Crosby mill http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/Restoration-of-Brill-Windmill-due.4735195.jp Brill Windmill restoration The Remembering Three Mills publication The book Remembering Three Mills was published in 2008 by the River Lea Tidal Mill Trust Limited, edited by Brian Strong, ISBN 0954409493. It is available by post from Beverley Charters, The Miller's House, Three Mill Lane, London, E3 3DU, priced £6.00 including postage and packing. Cheques made payable to "River Lea Tidal Mill Trust Ltd" A history of the area, esp family life in the area from people we have seen over the years http://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/news/Water-mill-to-light-up.4762985.jp Allport Mill Hydro scheme http://www.peakscan.freeuk.com/mills.htm (Peak District mill photos) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g8hbw/Wallace_and_Gromit_A_Matter_of_Loaf_and_Death/ Wallace & Gromit-Set in a Mill.... Best wishes for 2009 William Hill News of Mills, Mills outside the UK, Watermills, Windmills 2008-12-29T21:55:59+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/preston_mill_near_faversham/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/preston_mill_near_faversham/#When:10:41:32Z .Vincent Pargeter has commented on the curious sweeps on the smock mill near Faversham shown in the Mills Archive's new Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/millsarchive/ The site and Vincent's note are both of interest!The outer pair of sweeps on the flikr photo of the smock mill at Preston Nr Faversham are wide and significantly tapered. The inner pair are narrower and maybe tapered only slightly. The wide pair may be typical of the earlier Kentish sweeps dating, perhaps, to the time before steam engines. To have this degree of taper, the shutters must be different lengths, each one made to fit in its position only.I think that Headcorn Mill had a similar pair. I wonder which millwright made these sweeps? Vincent Research, Windmills 2008-12-28T10:41:32+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/mills_in_iceland/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/mills_in_iceland/#When:08:03:04Z Peter Cobley wrote a nice piece on a windmill he discovered on a trip to Iceland. The article can be read here I am reminded of the 1976 Bibliotecha Molinologica publication by Beenhaker, which is now out of print, but there is a second hand copy at http://shop.millsarchivetrust.org/ price £10 Mills outside the UK, TIMS, Windmills 2008-12-19T08:03:04+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/cap_for_murphy_windmill_in_golden_gate_park/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/cap_for_murphy_windmill_in_golden_gate_park/#When:20:54:11Z Via a couple of small images on Flickr (1 and 2), I see that the cap for the Murphy windmill that is being rebuilt in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, appears to have arrived on site in the park.The Campaign to Save the Golden Gate Park Windmills is fairly quiet on progress, but does note if you delve deeply enough that the cap was indeed expected back from the Dutch millwrights Verbij Hoogmade this fall (autumn), and that a Dutch-born San Franciscan, Mark de Jong, is scheduled to reassemble its tower ready to take the cap once again. Everything is due to be completed within the year 2009. More details on both the windmills in the park, which were built to pump water for irrigation, can be found on my Windmill World page about Californian windmills. News of Mills, Mills outside the UK, Windmills 2008-12-08T20:54:11+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/wokingham_watermills/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/wokingham_watermills/#When:10:42:52Z Colin Mitchell has emailed asking for help with information on a second watermill in Wokingham, Berkshire. His query follows:Ken Major’s 1963 survey of Berkshire Watermills (Berkshire Archaeological Journal Volume 61 1963-4) shows two mills on the Emm Brook as it flowed through Wokingham. One of these, Emmbrook or Little Mill at OS 800695, has a fairly well documented history but there seems to be little known about the other. This unnamed mill was located at OS 808680 and there was still a building and waterwheel when Ken inspected it in 1963 (there are copies of his photographs at the National Monument Record). At that stage the building was used as Wokingham District Rover Scout Den but I have failed to find any information on its working life as a mill, neither have I found any trace of the building on any map. Can anyone add to my limited knowledge of this watermill please? Research, Watermills 2008-12-02T10:42:52+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/millwrighting_tradition/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/millwrighting_tradition/#When:11:41:49Z Mike Beacham writes about traditional millwrighting practices and how they vary to meet specific regional needs. Examples from Schleswig-Holstein, Eire, Turkey and Britain are mentioned. The full article follows:Almost without exception, detailed studies of milling and its history will at some point refer to ‘millwrighting tradition’ to account for deviations from general practice, rather like ‘vernacular architecture’ in the building world. Like that, too, it carries with it ideas of quaintness, or of being old-fashioned or behind the times – even, perhaps, of deliberate ignorance where fashionable advances are concerned. Some traditional practices were adopted to meet a specific regional requirement: As the wind on the west coast of Scleswig-Holstein is very strong, the all-wooden sails of the mills built here are usually only nineteen metres long. The further away you get from the coast, the longer the sails of the windmills become. [TIMS VII, 1989, 179] For some authors, the evidence of numbers alone is taken to indicate a common practice among local groups of millwrights: In Somerset and adjacent south western counties [small tower mills] take on the appearance of a tradition because of their numbers; elsewhere, where it is doubtful if a well-formulated millwrighting tradition ever existed, they can only be grouped by similarities in the form of the towers themselves [Turner & Watts, TIMS IV, 1977, 55] or In Eire, Tacumshin belongs to the County Wexford type, which clearly indicates a local millwrighting tradition, which was owing to distance, and the local population being of English descent, [and] is unconnected with the main Irish windmill area… The Irish South European type mills, from their number, must represent a millwrighting tradition also. [R.Hawksley, TIMS IV, 1977, 68] and [On Rhodes, Vation Mill and] the nearby Gennadi mills appear identical in many respects and this suggests that the mills were all constructed in the same tradition perhaps even by the same group of craftsmen. [R.Crumbleholme, IM 56, 1998, 13] Custom and habit have offered a degree of comfort to groups in all societies, and millwrights and their customers have been no exceptions: [In Turkey,]Despite the availability of modern engineering materials and construction techniques, traditional designs, which have worked well over the centuries, meeting the milling requirements, have been retained, and only the materials of those components which rot and wear out have been changed…to give a longer working life. [T.Hay, IM54, 1997, 17-18] In Britain, By 1820 iron castings were widely available from small foundries that were opening up thoughout the countryside. Many millwrights continued to work in timber, however, and the survival of wooden gearing in some areas is probably due to the persistence of local millwrighting traditions as well as the cost of castings and their transport. [M.Watts, ‘Water & Wind Power’, 2000, 70] Such traditions can result in design transfers between otherwise disparate forms. Dulas watermill on Anglesey, for example, was built overdrive because it is in a predominantly windmill area and for no other discernible reason [see D.Jones, TIMS IV, 1977, 95]. In Hungary, Horse-mill owners had to meet the demand for better means of production [so] they took to the building of windmills. In the process…they transferred the traditional way of mounting their horsewheel [at floor level] into the new windmill building…The loss of storage room by their construction was outweighed by the familiarity with the approved tradition. [D & A Nijhof, TIMS VII, 1989, 302] As Wailes noted [‘Lincolnshire Windmills’, 1991 reprint, 110] the tower corn mills at Hibaldstow, Croft, and Long Sutton had their curbs mounted on hexagonal wooden frames on top of the brickwork, a practice he thought “derived from the construction of smock mills used for drainage.” This type of construction is noted, however, in France, where there were no smock mills. One or two regional traditions seem to be of questionable validity. In Suffolk, mills had fantails turning the opposite way from the sails A tradition based on the deflection of the wind from the upper sail [causing] the mill to turn slightly out of wind unless the upper blade of the fly presented its edge to the deflected airflow. This may have been the case with postmills, but not nearly so much with towers, but the tradition of counter-rotation has persisted with only infrequent exceptions. [R. de Little, ‘The Windmills of England’, 1997, 94] The same author asks [ibid, 55] why there was a tradition of clockwise sails in Cambridgeshire and west Suffolk, and admits that it is not easily explained other than that there was apparently an unusually large number of left-handed people in the area. Including all the millwrights, one assumes. Longest-standing traditions in English windmills appear to relate to cap shapes and types. Had windmilling continued for much longer than it did, it might have been that the design innovations of Smeaton, Fairburn, or Karl Kuhl would have been considered ‘traditions’; but, of course, we know their origins from the publications of their originators. In that respect, they were better placed than their anonymous predecessors. Perhaps, too, traditions of a sort were stimulated during the nineteenth century by the various pattern books like that of Thomas Tegg in 1828, and mill-founders’ catalogues, which perhaps deserve more rigorous study than they have received hitherto. It appears, then, that ‘millwrighting tradition’ can be defined as a pattern of working of unknown origin, local or regional in extent, which uses particular materials or forms which persist even after improvements are possible, but which are either not readily practicable or not compatible with the training of the craftsmen or the habits of their clients. MJA Beacham Mills outside the UK, TIMS, Windmills 2008-11-30T11:41:49+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/green_power_is_not_so_simple/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/green_power_is_not_so_simple/#When:22:11:12Z Frans Bouwers from Belgium responded to William Hill's news item on watermills and green power (see the thread "Anyone interested in Mill News?") by pointing out some of the problems with turbines in Flanders. His email follows:William Interesting bit on watermills and green power. Do all these millers that are so happy to generate electricity, realise that the big problem is flooding? We know the problems already in Flanders were the authorities are firmly against converting watermills to electrical powerplants due to the increased risk of flooding caused by the year round high water level needed to run the turbines of the power plant. The fear for flooding is so big that in the province of Limburg, the old traditional watermills are allowed to operate (store water), only once a month and then only for a few hours and with low risk of rain. On rivers, the situation can be different. A small mill generating electricity is a good way of keeping the miller at home. It looks good to generate so called "green power" but reality is not that simple. Besides, there is the small problem of fish migration that has to be realised by 2010 or 2015 in Europe. In order to achieve that, big money is needed to make fish bypasses, etc.... Groeten Frans Electricity Generation, Mills outside the UK, TIMS, Watermills 2008-11-26T22:11:12+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/chislet_mill_anyone/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/chislet_mill_anyone/#When:16:30:12Z Virginia Silvester has done a lot of research on the early millers at Chislet. Her detailed email outlines what she has found out and her particular interest is the May family. Fascinating reading; the full email follows:I have been pleased to find the information about this mill on your website, and I thought you might like to know what I have found out about the earliest millers there, who were my ancestors. Jenny West’s book “The Windmills of Kent” states that “On a beam near the ground floor entrance is a carved plaque bearing the inscriptions – ‘Anthony May1765. A May 1789. M May 1795.’” I believe that the first Anthony May was the carpenter of that name, baptised in Chislet in 1690 and died there in 1777. He may perhaps have constructed the mill himself; certainly the Mays owned the mill and the mill house. I don’t know whether the elderly Anthony operated the mill himself, but by December 1772 his grandson Anthony May was living and working there. Anthony junior had married in 1768, and his eldest known child was baptised in Chislet in 1771, but thereafter the children were all baptised at Reculver, because the church there was much nearer than the one in Chislet. There were 11 children in total, and at least two of the sons worked as millers for a time. I suspect that the second inscription refers to Anthony May junior, and the third to his son Moses, baptised in 1778, who was a miller in Margate between 1813 and 1821 (as was his brother Zebedee in 1815). It is however possible that the inscriptions refer to three young men when they finished their apprenticeships: 1. Anthony May junior, aged 18 in 1765; 2. His son Anthony, aged 17 in 1789 (though there is no evidence he was ever a miller) and 3. Moses, aged 17 in 1795. Was there perhaps some rite of passage for young millers? The poor rate records for Chislet show Anthony MAY as the owner and occupier of the mill and house up until the spring of 1822. From October 1822, the property was owned and occupied by John COLLARD, from a local landowning family based at Chislet Park, although John was not resident in the parish. A Henry COLLARD is said to have been the miller in 1847 – perhaps the same as the Henry COLLARD of Greys Farm in 1824. Anthony junior died in 1831, and neither his will nor his grandfather’s mention the mill. So far my research has been based on the parish registers, poor rate records, wills and marriage licences. I still have more to do, and in particular I want to see if I can find anything in the records at Lambeth Palace and follow up a Chancery case I think may be relevant. If I find anything further, I will let you know. I would be happy to enter into correspondence with anyone about Chislet mill and the Mays. Virginia Silvester Tel 00 44 1628 675146 Mob 00 44 7785 360973 29 Harcourt Road, Dorney Reach, Maidenhead, Berks SL6 0DT Mill People & Family History, Windmills 2008-11-25T16:30:12+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/sussex_industrial_history_online/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/sussex_industrial_history_online/#When:08:14:38Z Don Cox has emailed to announce the annual periodical of the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society, which includes the Sussex Mills Group, is now available online.There are many articles on Sussex mills there and in particular:- Vol. 18 – 1988 is devoted entirely to “The Windmills and Millers of Brighton”. Vol. 29 – 1999 is also devoted entirely to Sussex Windmills and their restoration as in 1976. Vol. 22 – 1992 contains a bibliography of Sussex Mills. These are in pdf format and can be downloaded !!! There are many other shorter articles. The books are also indexed on-line. The address for S.I.A.S is http://www.sussexias.co.uk where the above can be found. Sussex Mills Group have their own website and this is linked to the SIAS site. Regards, Don Cox Research, Windmills 2008-11-25T08:14:38+00:00 http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/frank_gregory_and_his_model_of_nutley_mill/ http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/blogs/more/frank_gregory_and_his_model_of_nutley_mill/#When:20:15:19Z The photograph was probably taken in about 1970.Frank displays his model of Nutley post mill which shows the mill in its restored state. It looks as if it is standing on a specially-prepared platform, which takes the form of a millstone, in Frank's garden! According to my records, the project to restore the mill began in 1968 and was completed in 1972, when the mill ground corn once again. A completely new set of quarter bars and cross trees were installed, to replace the rotted originals, while the mill remained shored up on temporary supports above them. There must have been a sense of great relief when the mill was supported by its new trestle! This photograph is one of more than 2000 new archive entries in the Frank Gregory collection, accessible via the catalogue at http://www.millsarchive.com. View items relating to Nutley Windmill Frank Gregory Online, Mill People & Family History, Windmills 2008-11-19T20:15:19+00:00