Subscribe to our mailing list below:
Origins of Windmills
We started eating a crude form of flat bread around 10,000 B.C. Rolling one stone over another to crush seeds was used from Upper Palaeolithic times onwards, but this action is not ideal for grinding the seeds of grasses such as cereals. Straight-sided rectangular stones used in a push-pull sliding action date from the Neolithic era, when the systematic cultivation of cereals originated in Mesopotamia.
Ancient Egyptians are believed to be the first to have baked leaven bread when, in about 3,000 B.C., they found that they could ferment a mixture of flour and water by using wild yeast borne on the air. As wheat is the only grain with sufficient gluten to make a raised or leaven loaf, it was favoured over other grains such as oats, millet, rice and barley. The workers who built the pyramids were paid in bread.
The rotary-action hand-quern operated by a vertical stick, still found in villages in the Middle East, spread from the Western Mediterranean, probably Spain, after 500 B.C. and introduced the basic method of rotating one stone over another, stationary, one that was universal until the 19th century – varied only in scale and by the motive power used. By 200 B.C. Romans were using a version powered by mules and had introduced a hopper on the upper stone to feed an even supply of grain.
Water was used for motive power where streams and rivers occurred; wind was later harnessed where there was no water but access to technology and timber. It is thought that the Persians were the first to use wind to grind grain some time after 500 A.D., when they used sails to rotate a vertical shaft on the same principle as some signs on filling- station forecourts. Screens could be moved to funnel the wind from any direction and a millstone was attached directly to the shaft. A problem was that, with no gearing, the millstone tended to rotate too rapidly and skidded over the grain. The first windmill to appear in Western Europe used a horizontal shaft and cog-and-ring gears to drive a vertical shaft connected to the millstone. The gears allowed the millstone to rotate more slowly. All was mounted on a vertical post, allowing the sails to be turned into the wind. Wooden shuttering enclosed the mechanism and millstones. Appearing so simple in illustrations, the medieval windmill was in reality a miracle of ingenious design and carpentry. Every part of the mill, the timber structure and wooden machinery, was functional. In use it needed to be finely balanced on the central post so that the whole could be easily turned.
The post mill design lasted until modern times and it was not until the 18th century that its limitations led to the development of tower mills when the invention of the fantail and rotating cap allowed the sails to turn automatically into the wind without the need to rotate the whole structure. Released from the need to turn the sails from the ground, the opportunity was taken to push them up into faster-moving air, resulting in a couple more lower floors to produce a more spacious industrial environment.
Most mills that continued working into the twentieth century had been modernised in ways that took advantage of the technical developments of the Industrial Revolution, particularly by replacing timber with iron. It is worth noting, therefore, the features of our mill which show it to have been heir to the local millwrighting tradition based on carpentry and using expensive iron only where absolutely necessary - even the main door-bolts are wooden.
We started eating a crude form of flat bread around 10,000 B.C. Rolling one stone over another to crush seeds was used from Upper Palaeolithic times onwards, but this action is not ideal for grinding the seeds of grasses such as cereals. Straight-sided rectangular stones used in a push-pull sliding action date from the Neolithic era, when the systematic cultivation of cereals originated in Mesopotamia. Ancient Egyptians are believed to be the first to have baked leaven bread when, in about 3,000 B.C., they found that they could ferment a mixture of flour and water by using wild yeast borne on the air. As wheat is the only grain with sufficient gluten to make a raised or leaven loaf, it was favoured over other grains such as oats, millet, rice and barley. The workers who built the pyramids were paid in bread.
The rotary-action hand-quern operated by a vertical stick, still found in villages in the Middle East, spread from the Western Mediterranean, probably Spain, after 500 B.C. and introduced the basic method of rotating one stone over another, stationary, one that was universal until the 19th century – varied only in scale and by the motive power used. By 200 B.C. Romans were using a version powered by mules and had introduced a hopper on the upper stone to feed an even supply of grain.
Water was used for motive power where streams and rivers occurred; wind was later harnessed where there was no water but access to technology and timber. It is thought that the Persians were the first to use wind to grind grain some time after 500 A.D., when they used sails to rotate a vertical shaft on the same principle as some signs on filling- station forecourts. Screens could be moved to funnel the wind from any direction and a millstone was attached directly to the shaft. A problem was that, with no gearing, the millstone tended to rotate too rapidly and skidded over the grain. The first windmill to appear in Western Europe used a horizontal shaft and cog-and-ring gears to drive a vertical shaft connected to the millstone. The gears allowed the millstone to rotate more slowly. All was mounted on a vertical post, allowing the sails to be turned into the wind. Wooden shuttering enclosed the mechanism and millstones. Appearing so simple in illustrations, the medieval windmill was in reality a miracle of ingenious design and carpentry. Every part of the mill, the timber structure and wooden machinery, was functional. In use it needed to be finely balanced on the central post so that the whole could be easily turned. The post mill design lasted until modern times and it was not until the 18th century that its limitations led to the development of tower mills when the invention of the fantail and rotating cap allowed the sails to turn automatically into the wind without the need to rotate the whole structure. Released from the need to turn the sails from the ground, the opportunity was taken to push them up into faster-moving air, resulting in a couple more lower floors to produce a more spacious industrial environment.
Most mills that continued working into the twentieth century had been modernised in ways that took advantage of the technical developments of the Industrial Revolution, particularly by replacing timber with iron. It is worth noting, therefore, the features of our mill which show it to have been heir to the local millwrighting tradition based on carpentry and using expensive iron only where absolutely necessary - even the main door-bolts are wooden.