4. 1. Politics and economics
Once feudal and ecclesiastical landlords had lost their manorial rights, which typically included the milling of all grain on their lands, independent mills multiplied; in grain-growing areas there were frequently several in a village and water mills in every riverside town (David 1977, 14). However, the development of grain mill structures and milling technology in the immediate post-medieval period is somewhat poorly represented in the archaeological record, on the one hand due to a lack of identifiable remains, and on the other hand due to the scale of alterations to existing mill buildings from the period and the fact that there is little if any surviving contemporary machinery (Watts 2002, 117).
While bakers had previously sent their own grain to the mill to be turned into flour, in the 18th century millers began buying grain themselves and selling flour and by-products (e. g. bran) (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 31). Larger institutions such as prisons, workhouses and asylums often had their own mills, as well as bakeries, at this time (Petersen 1995, 49). During the time of the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries associations of working class people founded cooperative mills, often named Union Mills, in cities such as Birmingham, Halifax, Leeds and Sheffield, some of which had considerable impact on the local and regional milling trade. The opening of a Union Mill in Wolverhampton, for example, soon led to a significant reduction in the output of another (privately-owned) local steam-mill (Trinder 1993, 124) (fig. 4.1.1.).
(‘Industry and the Canal - Union Mill’ nd.[g])
Until the 1830s virtually all wheat flour consumed in Britain was produced domestically, with imports only rarely exceeding 1% of the total, and while imports increased considerably after 1831 the great majority of flour and meal consumed continued to be home-produced until the onset of the agricultural depression of the 1870s (Borchert 1948; Petersen 1995; Fenton 2007). From the late 19th century onwards there was a progressive consolidation of the milling industry, characterised by the merger of small rural mills, trustification and the establishment of large-scale, highly mechanised mills in major ports, with the result that by 1939 the ‘Big Three’ milling concerns (Joseph Rank Ltd., Spillers Ltd. and the Co-operative Wholesale Society) controlled ca. 66% of total flour production in Britain (Burnett 1995, 72).
4. 2. Querns and hand-mills
The use of querns for grinding grain goes back a long time in Britain. Saddle- and trough querns were used since prehistoric times and rotary querns since the Roman period (Fenton 1976, 101) (fig. 4.2.1.). Notwithstanding this long period of usage, there a very few intact medieval querns, since people circumventing the landlord’s right to have all the grain grown on his land milled at his mill- and receive a fee in kind for this service- were routinely punished by having their querns confiscated and destroyed (David 1977, 40); this also took place as recently as the 19th century in the Hebrides (Dodgshon 1992; MacLellan 1997). In Scotland as a whole querns had gone out of widespread use by the mid-19th century (Fenton 1976, 102), though they continued to be used into the 20th century in more isolated areas, especially where other types of mills were scarce (Fenton 1976; David 1977) (fig. 4.2.2.).
(‘Saddle quern and grain rubber
used by Wales' first farmers
c. 5,000 years ago’ nd.[f])
Today a variety of small hand- or electrically-powered grain mills made by a number of international manufacturers are marketed towards health-conscious consumers who want to grind their own grain for baking (BeSmart website 2004a; ‘Manual grain mill basics or Grinder 101’ 2009a) (fig. 4.2.3.).
in Shetland, ca. 1910-1920
(Watts 2002, 43)
(‘Grain mills – hand mills’ 2004b)
4. 3. Windmills
While the origin of the windmill has been a matter of much debate, its modern form is believed to have been developed in 12th century Europe (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 55). There is evidence for windmills in Britain from the end of the same century (David 1977, 21), with their earliest incarnation being the post mill, as seen on medieval manuscript illustrations (fig. 4.3.1.). Its wooden body contained the mill stones and turned on a vertical post mounted on a timber frame; the whole body of the mill had to be manually turned into the wind using a tail pole (Sheppard and Newton 1957; Palmer and Neaverson 2001) (fig. 4.3.2.). Since these wooden structures were, due to their very purpose, subject to frequent wind damage, very few survive.
Fig. 4.3.2. Internal workings of a typical post mill
(‘Windmill machinery’ nd.[e])
The tower mill, invented around the mid-14th century, was somewhat less laborious to operate in that its sails were carried by a cap on top of the structure, which was turned to face the wind, the main body being fixed (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 9). While windmills soon became numerous in various parts of England and Wales, there is no record of them in Scotland until the middle of the 16th century, and they were never widespread there (Watts 2002, 132). This might be due to environmental conditions being less suited to the operation of windmills, or perhaps simply to neither physical remains nor documentary evidence surviving. Some examples were, however, erected on Shetland and on Orkney in the 18th and 19th centuries, due to a shortage of suitable streams for water mills (Fenton 1976, 105).Written sources indicate that by the 17th century London was surrounded by at least ten windmills supplying the city with flour and meal (David 1977, 14). The 18th century saw significant developments in the technology of wind milling including remote-controlled sails and the invention of an automatic winding device called a fantail (patented 1745) (Watts 2002, 147) as well as a marked increase in the use of cast and wrought iron on working parts of the mill machinery in an effort to increase their durability (Watts 2002, 117). From the end of the century onwards wooden post mills were increasingly replaced with more durable brick or stone tower mills, of which far more examples are extant (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 57). Tower mills arguably reached the pinnacle of their development in the first half of the 19th century, with many of the most impressive structures, such as Wilton Mill, Wiltshire (erected in 1821) being built around the time of the Napoleonic Wars (fig. 4.3.3.). Many other examples from this period survive, particularly along the North Sea coast in Lincolnshire, East Anglia and also in Holland (Trinder 1993; Palmer and Neaverson 2001) (fig. 4.3.4.).
(Wilton Windmill website nd.[c])
dated 1822 (Goodey 2009)
4. 4. Water mills
horizontal water mill
(Watts 2002, 64)
with dry stone walls and turf roof,
Shetland, photographed ca. 1900-1910
(Watts 2002, 17)
The origin of water mills, too, is far from clear, but it is likely that they originated in pre-Roman times (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 55), though documentary evidence for Britain only goes back as far as AD 762 (Watts 2002, 72). The oldest surviving type is a horizontal wheeled mill with the upper stone directly mounted on a vertical shaft at whose lower end a set of paddles (known as the tirl) was attached. Water was channelled by a leat into the chute and on to the paddles in a chamber below the lower stone (bedstone) (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 55) (fig. 4.4.1.).
Early water mills in northern Scotland typically consisted of small rubble-stone buildings, often oval in shape, containing the millstones. They were constructed in such a way as to require only small amounts of running water and allow many different mills to use the same stream. Catering for single farms or hamlets, they were characteristic of areas of dispersed settlement (fig. 4.4.2.). In areas of predominantly nucleated settlement, such as Lowland Scotland and large parts of England, village or manorial mills usually served an entire community (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 56).
The development of gearing in 16th century corn mills made it possible for more than one pair of millstones to be driven from a single wheel, either simultaneously if enough water power was present or alternately (Watts 2002, 119). The early 17th century mill at Norbury (Derbyshire), for example, had two waterwheels housed in opposite ends of the mill building (Watts 2002, 120). Written sources from this period indicate the use of under-, over- and breastshot water wheels (Watts 2002, 129). Both size and power of waterwheels in grain mills increased in the course of the 17th century (Watts 2002, 122), and the 18th century saw a significant increase in the use of iron in milling machinery, as in the case of windmills (Watts 2002, 117).
(Tandy 2003)
Tidal mills were another type of watermill, constructed where both a suitable tidal range and a long coastal inlet were present, with their most characteristic feature being a gated dam built across the inlet to contain the incoming tide and subsequently release the water through a wheel on the outgoing tide. A house usually adjoined the mill building, since the mill’s dependency on the tides necessitated operation at varying times of day or night. While few tidal mills survive, largely due to storm damage, their former existence is often indicated by remnants of the dam, which also provided access to the mill. Working tide mills remain at Woodbridge, Suffolk (fig. 4.4.3.), and Elling, Hampshire (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 56.)
4. 5. Steam mills and roller milling
The application of steam power to grain milling in the latter part of the 18th century significantly increased output. Around 57 steam engines were installed in British flour mills before the turn of the century, either in new purpose-built steam mills or in converted water mills (Trinder 1993, 122). The most famous of the early steam mills, however, Albion Mill in Blackfriars in London, had a short and not very successful life; opened in 1784, it was a commercial failure, never operating at full capacity and finally burning down in 1791 (Trinder 1993, 122) (fig. 4.5.1.).
(‘The “fireproof” mill’ nd.[r])
While the harnessing of steam power doubtlessly had an impact on the milling industry, some experts caution against exaggerating the speed or extent of transformation, citing statistics such as 2/3 of horsepower used for grain milling still coming from water in 1870 (Petersen 1995, 66). Nevertheless the increase in grain imports in the second half of the 19th century encouraged the construction of steam mills in ports and along major waterways (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 58).
(‘Welcome to the KMEC Company FMFQ Roller Mill,
pneumatic wheat flour mill auto
or manual control’ nd.[q])
Arguably the most important development in grain milling technology in the 19th century, and still the basis of modern machinery today, was the invention of roller milling (fig. 4.5.2.). Invented in Switzerland in 1834, it was adopted on a large scale in the US before becoming popular in Britain in the latter part of the century and, being significantly more efficient (Trinder 1993, 124), gradually superseded the ancient method of grinding grain between millstones.
The first roller mill in Britain opened in Glasgow in 1872, and eventually this new technology (promoted to no small degree by the International Exhibition of Flour Mill Machinery in London in 1881) (Trinder 1993, 125) more so than steam milling alone, led to the decline of both water- and windmills (David 1977, 25), many of which lacked the money, the power or the space necessary to install roller milling plants (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 55). One of the reasons the new technology became so popular so quickly was the fact that it removed the germ from the grain before grinding, which allowed for the production of uniformly white flour with significantly increased storage potential (Sheppard and Newton 1957; David 1977). It was largely due to the impact of roller milling that milling became a large-scale industry in Britain towards the end of the 19th century (Burnett 1966, 104-105).
4. 6. Bolting
burr millstone with local
sandstone centre,
Livingston,
West Lothian, Scotland
(Watts 2002, 64-65)
Before the late 17th century flour had to be sifted (bolted) by hand after milling, a laborious and time-consuming process. The invention of an automatic bolter, agitated by the milling machinery and requiring only a small capital investment, eliminated this requirement and cut down on flour wastage (Petersen 1995, 53). In the 18th century advances in weaving techniques had a knock-on effect on milling technology in the form of fine silk replacing canvas, linen or wool in meal sieves, leading in turn to finer and whiter flour being produced (Sheppard and Newton 1957; David 1977). It was only in the latter part of the 20th century that a newly developed type of nylon replaced silk for this purpose (David 1977, 31).
4. 7. Millstones and buildings
As discussed above, until the later 19th century grain was ground between circular stones (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 9). 16th century mills used millstones made from various kinds of rock and sourced from different parts of Europe, such as German lava stones, French millstones and those made of native ‘Millstone Grit’ (Watts 2002, 142). The term ‘burrs’ for shaped blocks of French stone, considered to possess superior grinding power, first appears in early 17th century sources (Watts 2002, 143) (fig. 4.7.1.).
With regard to mill buildings a significant increase in size can be demonstrated in the immediate post-medieval period, due to the introduction of additional equipment such as grain-drying kilns and dressing machines; furthermore granaries for the storage of grain as well as domestic accommodation for the miller were frequently erected alongside the mill itself (Palmer and Neaverson 2001, 56). Technological developments from the time of the Industrial revolution onwards, designed to meet the demands of a rapidly expanding population by increasing productivity, instigated another series of changes to mill buildings and equipment (Watts 2002, 147). Extra floors for grain storage led to an increase in the height of buildings, while new machinery was introduced to e. g. clean the grain before milling and to refine flour more efficiently. Water wheels became larger and more efficient and, as described above, mechanical components used in shafting and gearing mechanisms were increasingly made of iron (Watts 2002, 147). The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the construction of huge steel and reinforced concrete milling plants in major ports, such as the Homepride complex in Wallasey, Merseyside, built from 1898 onwards (Trinder 1993, 125).
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