[From Folk Life Survey 1950]

"Our Corn Mills"

Mr T.A. Brew, Kella Mills, Sulby

Our Corn Mills in 1950 are much the same as when they were built around 1815, Water is the only power and stones the only method of grinding,

In some mills we find four pairs of stones, and in the smaller mills only three. But in no mill is there less than three. The reason for this I will describe later.

We find the main machinery to consist of the stones, as mentioned before, and the necessary arrangement to either clean the grain before milling, usualy a winnowing mill, or to separate the meal from the husks after grinding. There was usually a pearl barley machine in each mill, but not in every case, There was also a kiln in every mill, though these kilns do not appear to be part of the original building and are, in every case, a small addition or a room in a new addition to the old building.

In the construction of the mills we find the same layout in several mills, That is, the gearing in several mills will be made from the same set of patterns with perhaps small alterations to suit the particular situation. The water-wheels also have this same duplication, though a wheel might be six feet wide and still have the same castings as one three feet wide, and the Millwright evidently used the same set of patterns with perhaps slight alterations for both wheels. There are also mills at each end of the island having the same gearing, which would show that a Millwright, having patterns for a large stream, would travel to the other end of the island to carry out work, whereas a Millwright having patterns suitable for small streams would have to go where the smaller wheel and gearing was required.

All mills do not have the same type of gearings, we find the Lineshaft Gearing in such mills as the Shore Mill, Michael; Glen Moar Mill in Glen Helen; Glenfaba Mill at Peel; and Silverdale Mill, Ballasalla; the Corony Mill, at Maughold; Foxdale Mill.

We find a Bevel Gearing in the Killane Mill, Ballaugh; Milntown Mill near Ramsey; Cornaa Mill, Maughold; the Little Mill, Laxey; the Lhen Mill, Andreas; Mullin e Clie Mill at St. Johns; Colby Mill; in fact, all the small mills, or the mills having three pairs of stones, had this type of gearing. It was direct in drive, and as these three-pair mills are all on the small streams, they were easier on water.

A rather similar type of gearing, but termed intermediate gearing, is found only in the Kella Mills, Sulby; Ballasalla Mill or Abbey Mill; and Castletown Mill. These mills are the Lineshaft Type: all had four pairs of stones.

In the Claddagh Mill, Sulby, Glen Wyllin Mill, Kirk Michael, and Castletown Mill we find the Upright Shaft made of timber - a very similar arrangement to a wood axle in a waterwheel.

We also find in Castletown Mill the shelling stone, stones driven with a belt, which would suggest that these stones were added at a later date than the original ones, as we do not find belt drives in the gearing of any mill for stone-driving.

How the Miller Lived:

I feel that my father was typical of the Millers of 1900, working long hours in the mill, usually all night several nights of the week in the winter-time., In the summer work was slack and the living depended on the Miller's ability to do all sorts of jobs.

Father was a joiner by trade and put this to good use in his spare time, He was also the Pig-killer of the district and this job was usually done at the beginning of the night. as the custom to kill the pig or lamb one night, and then go and cut it up the next. He always got what was described as a 'stheg', that is how it sounded. If the people were generous this would amount to a nice piece of the pig - about six pounds, or a good roast, and if the people were not so generous, perhaps half the head or some ribs. Father would sometimes buy a quarter and this would be salted down. And there was always the herring crock and the bacon crock in the kitchen.

He was also a very good shot with the gun and as he was friendly with all the farmers in the district, he could go on their land to shoot rabbits, which he sold. He also used to shoot game, but as he was a very generous man he used to give the game he shot to his friends, and I never remember eating a pheasant, wild duck, or plover, though he shot quite a few.

We always kept a cow and a pig. The cow used to be herded along the roads, and a small field would be rented about a mile away. This allowed the cow to have about two hours grazing either way going to and from the field, They spoke of this grazing along the roads as 'in the long Meadows'. We also had some meadows at Sulby where we got the hay for the cow for the winter, When the hay needed ricking, we used to walk from the Killane Mill, where we were then, to the Kella at Sulby, roughly four miles each way. Father would shoot whatever he could on the journey, and to get to ponds which were good for duck he would go in a zig zag way and the journey was nearer five miles each way.

He would seldom bring any food when we went to rick hay and if we were longer than expected, we would go to Grandfather's at St. Jude's near the Church for a good feed,

Father also kept a boat on the beach at Killane, and during the summer he would go out fishing with several of the neighbours. Fish was fairly plentiful and some good catches would be brought in. The fish was shared out by dividing it into piles according to the number of men, then one man would turn his back to the piles and, when a man said whose is this and pointed to a pile, he would say one of the men's names, There was never any dispute about dividing it in this way.

But here again the neighbours would gather when the Miller had been to the fishing and everyone would have to have a bit of fish.

He also set lines on the shore and called them a name like 'Gostjags' (Gorstiags). A line about twenty yards long was used and every four yards a long stone was fastened on it, The stones were fastened with two half hitches; this kept it in place and as the tides rose the line was moored further out. and as the tides fell the line was brought in, If you neglected to bring the line in when the tide fell, you had to go out perhaps up to the waist in the sea and hawl it in. We caught fluke, skate, small cods and such-like, The bait we used was mainly gibbons, Thie fish helped to feed the family during the summer months.

Father would always get a few ridges of potatoes in some farmer's field and in return he would help that farmer in the hay and corn harvest and at threshing times.

He used to walk along the shore after driftwood (called something like Culthrey). This would sometimes consist of useful planks which father would use for his joinering, It was the custom that if a person got more timber than they could carry, it was placed above high water mark and packed with stones; this proved that it belonged to someone and seldom would anyone take such timber, and if anyone ever did take it, nothing which that person ever found and marked would be left for him, He had broken the unwritten law and could never be trusted. My brother and I used to go from the Killane in one direction to Orrisdale Head, and in the other direction to Ballagarraghyn.

We would also go on Saturdays to the Creggan - a large patch of gorse near Ballacaine, Jurby, and each of us would carry a 'bart' on our backs of the gorse sticks.

The source of the Killane trench was in Ballaugh Curragh and part of its journey was through meadows which were actually lower than the trench. This meant that the high banks of the river kept it in its place. When these banks got a hole in them. the water flowed out of the water-course into the meadows and the mill had no water.

During the summer when the trench was very low in water and not enough to drive the Mill, I had to go every few nights along the banks of the trench and fill up any holes through which the water was leaking so that as much as possible would come to the mill.

During the summer months when water was low at the Killane, father used to borrow a cart and horse from a neighbour and take the wheat for flour to either the Claddagh Mill at Sulby, or Glen Wyllin Mill, Michael. This meant that the 2/- he got per boll for the making of the wheat into flour had to be paid either to the Sulby or Kirk Michael Mill, The carting to and from Sulby or Michael was just done to keep those customers going until the winter and no charge whatsoever was made for this extra labour,

Though it must have been rather hard to make a living as a Miller in those days I never remember any work done on a Sunday. And to use a hammer or saw was to risk being told off, in fact we were not allowed to graze the cow along the roads on Sundays, nor play with our engines, as we called them, (boxes on pram wheels). We went to Sunday School in the mornings and to Sunday School and Chapel in the afternoons, though when we got older we were allowed to go for a walk on Sunday afternoon instead of Chapel.

It must have been about the year 1916 when I first started in the mill. I would be ten years old then. I remember it was during the 1914-18 War when labour was very scarce and I would be kept home from school to 'Mind the Mill' while father went out to help the farmers with their crops I wasn't strong enough to lift the sacks off the hooks and. was supplied with a knife to cut them off; after that I could get them away on the truck. I also remember being able to turn the kiln barefoot, run over the gravel on the shore barefoot, and also run through a stubble field barefoot - things which I could not imagine myself doing now. I can also remember putting sacks on the hoist chain for father; and remember he used to put them to the chain for me as I could not manage them very well.

It couldn't have been long until I began to get more jobs to do in the mill such as help to dress the mill-stones, because I remember being at school with pieces of steel in my fingers, These pieces flew off the mill-picks in the form of sparks and went into the skin, to show up as specks later under the skin.

Milling oats, barley, beans, peas

The bags of grain were brought to the mill by the farmer's own horse and cart, usually one and a half cwts. per bag (wheat would always be in Bolls of two and a quarter cwts.). Instructions would be given, and the farmer would be told when the meal would be ready - this was usually "A week today".

First the grain would be put on the kiln to be dried, each man's lot separately, If the lot was eight sacks perhaps, this would be a kiln full, and if less than this, two lots would be put on and a division left between them,

Coke was the fuel used, and the time the grain was left on the kiln depended on whether the grain was very damp or dry, the condition of the fire - whether the draught was good or not, in fact the miller just had to know what he was up to. This drying was a very important part of his job, as I will explain later.

These kilns varied quite a lot in size: some were ten feet square and some as big as sixteen feet square,

In most of these kilns, the drying floor was composed of Ware tiles about twelve inches square; others had cast-iron tiles similar in construction to the ware ones, but about eighteen inches square, Other kilns had sheet-iron drying floors. Each miller claimed that his kiln was the best and it was always a source of argument. There is no doubt that the Ware tiles gave a different flavour to oatmeal, They were much slower to heat up, but retained their heat longer when the fire was banked down or left to go out. This was an advantage when the miller had wheat to dry.

After the grain had been dried, it was put into bags and hoisted up to the top of the mill and put into the hopper of the Crushing Stone. It was at here the miller would find the proof of his drying. If the grain had not been dried enough, the stones would clog, or the meal would stick to the stones. The only way he could get over this difficulty was to lift the stones, as it was called and make the meal coarse. But this would lead to trouble with the customer later. If the grain had been over-dried, the meal would be easy to grind, dark in colour, and the bags would be less than half full and there would be considerable loss of weight. So you see the grain had to be properly dried or there was trouble.

The mill-stones used for grinding oats was an open-faced stone: Welsh pebble, or Derbyshire Peak they were called. The dressing of these stones was not as particular a job as the wheat stones or shilling stones. The main thing was to get the rows or furrows cleaned out, the centre lowered, and the face cut or ribbed. When sharp or freshly dressed, these stones would do approximately 3 cwts, per hour of nice meal.

If the mill-stones should run for a couple of minutes without feed or grain, all the labour of dressing them (usually two days) would be undone, If they ran without feed they would also strike fire. I have seen mill-stones on fire through running dry, as it was termed. The sack would be burned off the spout, the woodwork would be charred, and the stones would get very hot. When water was thrown on them they would burst in several pieces with a loud crack. To overcome this risk of running dry, we had warning bells fitted in the hoppers. When the grain went below a piece of wood, this piece of wood would overbalance and allow the bell to drop against the feed heater. Straws were also a source of trouble and care was taken to remove all rubbish on the kiln such as straws, strings, stones, etc., which were picked out, Grinding oats was simple providing it was properly dried, and when it had passed through the mill-stones it was ready for taking home.

A granite stone was used for such grains as barley, beans, and peas, These had a weaker husk and needed rubbing out instead of cutting, as did the oat husks,

If a mill had four pairs of stones, these would be used for;

One pair for oats
one for barley, etc.,
one for wheat grinding,
one pair for shilling oats for oatmeal,

If only three pairs were in the mill, the wheat stone would be used for barley, beans peas, and wheat, but the miller always liked to keep his wheat-stones for the grinding of wheat only if this was at all possible. As you will see later, his wheat-stones had to be in good trim if he wished to make good flour, and a miller was judged by his flour and oatmeal,

I would add here that in the Killane Mill we had a pair of 'Burrs' or wheat-stones for grinding oats. This was not unusual in mills, no doubt on account of the scarcity and high cost of mill-stones. The meal 'crushed oats' made by such stones was rather coarse, gritty, and the husks badly cut, and when the meal would be ready to be sent home, the sacks would look small.

This was because the 'burr' stones had no natural grinding surfaces, so they would be cut rough on the faces which would make them grind, but they would not rush the meal out in this condition. They would also take more water to drive them on account of their being worked closer or tighter together in an endeavour to produce a nice meal,

As each miller had his own troubles trying to grind oats fine, it was usually just middling firm, and no miller dressed his millstones oftener than necessary.

Our light when dressing millstones was a candle, and many a night I have sat until the early hours of the morning at the job so that it would be possible to get them working again sooner,

We usualy find a pair of mill-stones standing outside the mill. These are a spare pair which the miller has picked up and is keeping in case of trouble.

Milling Wheat

It may seem a strange fact, but in no mills in the island (that means the small water-mill) do we find any machinery whatever for the cleaning of wheat before milling, and I would explain this fact by saying that when these mills were constructed, all the grain milled in them would be threshed by the farmer himself and winnowed clean before being sent to the mill. These grain winnowing mills were really very efficient machines and could do their job quite as well as the machines we find in use today. No doubt our present machines have power drives, higher capacity, and improved types of sieves, but for a good job the winnowing machine was hard to beat, and their principle is incorporated in most modern grain cleaning machines.

One of the jobs the winnowing mill could not do was remove smut from the wheat. This was the miller's job and to do this cleaning, he had to wash the wheat.

The equipment was a wash-tub or barrel, a dolly peg or spade, and a bucket, The wheat in its dirty state was put into the tub, about a bushel at a time, the tub was filled with water to six inches or so above the wheat, and it was stirred with the dolly or spade. This would bring the unbroken smut berries to the surface of the water and they were spilled off with the liquid, the tub again filled and stirred and the water again poured off. Usually three waters would do, but if the wheat was very dirty it would require more washings. When clean, the wheat was scooped into bags to drain.

When washing wheat the miller had to have his kiln ready to receive it right away. It was not advisable for water to soak into the wheat. If it did, the wheat would be very difficult to dry and the taste of the smut would be carried into the grain of wheat with the water. It was a slow job to dry this wet wheat, and the job was generally done in the afternoon and the wheat would then be left on a slow heat all night. It was possible to make good flour out of dirty wheat in this way.

Here again the miller got no extra money for washing the wheat. The charge was so much for making a boll of wheat into flour, and no miller would risk making bad flour if possible.

The charge in 1906 for making a boll of wheat into flour was two shillings. A boll wes two and a quarter cwts, (eighteen stones).

The drying of the wheat was a very important job and the miller had to be experienced if he wished to make flour which would bake, and taste good. If too much heat was put under the kiln when drying wheat, it would make the bran very brittle and when it was ground the bran would cut up and the flour would be very dark and specky. If too little heat was used and the wheat not properly dried, when the miller would try to grind it it would stick to the stones. This would cause them to clog, as it was termed - the face of the stone would become a sheet of dough, the stones would get very hot, the miller would have to raise the stones and this would cause the ground wheat to be coarse and dark. When the miller tried separate the bran from the flour in such a case, he would have a lot of bran and very little flour which would be dark in colour.

In the baking of flour which had too much heat, the dough would run all over the table, When bonnags were made of such dough they would spread over the whole oven and the miller would be for it. On the other hand, if the wheat had been under-dried, this dough would be alright until the bonnag was taken out of the oven, then it would be found that it had failed to rise, would be as dead as it could be and the bonnag would taste like dough, So you see, the miller had to know his job and the people depended on their flour for their bread,

After the wheat was ground, it was hoisted up to the top of the mill and put into the dressing machine: this consisted of a wire-covered cylinder inside of which were six to eight long brushes the length of the cylinder, from three to five feet long. This cylinder was covered with fine wire at the head, or feed end. This gave a fine flour. Next came a slightly coarser wire and this gave a second quality flour. In most cases these two were mixed together. At the tail of the machine or the end near the delivery of the bran, a coarse wire was used and this gave a coarse, gritty flour, sometimes given to calves, sometimes baked into biscuits, or made into a porridge. This coarse flour contained the germ of the wheat and was looked upon as being rich. The bran continued and came out of a spout at the tail of the machine, opposite the feed,

If the drying and grinding had been badly done, very little fine flour would be produced and mostly seconds and coarse flour would be the result, with a lot of flour still stuck on the bran.

To send the finished flour home, the flour was put into one bag, the bran in the bottom of another, and the coarse flour on the top of the bran, a tie between of course.

It was very important that the mill-stones were kept well dressed for wheat grinding. They had to rub the flour off the bran without cutting the bran, and considerable skill and patience was needed to dress a pair of wheat stones. These stones were built up in blocks, fastened together with stucco and also backed with stucco. The whole stone was heavily banded around the edge, similar to a cart wheel,

If the joints between these blocks got open, they had to be filled to prevent small pieces of wheat leaking out without being ground. It was important the the furrows or rows were kept to the proper depth, These gave air to the stones and kept the meal cool. The actual dressing, ~ or the part which rubbed the flour off the bran, was cut with marks similar to the scratch made by a glass cutter on glass, If these marks were too deep, the stone would grind the bran and in this state it would be impossible to separate the bran from the flour.

Some people had what was termed wholemeal flour, This was the ground wheat with the rough bran sieved out of it, though if the bran was tender and broke up in the grinding it was left that way - this was really only crushed wheat.

When grinding wheat for flour the miller rubbed the ground wheat between his thumb and fingers. If it felt at all coarse, the stone was lowered and a little feed cut off (this would allow the stones down closer to each other to run at the same speed). The miller would listen to the 'sing' of his stones and would know when the speed was right.

He also tested his grind by catching it in a small handfull at the spout and snapping his thumb smartly down into it. The meal, if ground properly, should splash over either side of his hand, If the meal wasn't ground properly it would just stay under his thumb.

It was easy to tell what the result of the job would be at this stage, the miller would know if everything had been done properly by the wheat coming down the spout.

The dressing machines mentioned do not appear to have been part of the original mill but added at a later date. In no case are they built in the mill. The joists are either hacked away or left going through the machine. The machine is stayed into position and bolted to the wall, We do not find the same combination of machine and building here as we do with the millstones, which are part of the building's timbers so arranged to receive them.

Barley Meal or Flour

The methods of milling barley into meal or flour for human food follows much the same procedure as wheat but in the bigger mills a separate dressing machine would be used for dressing barley meal, and the wire on a barley machine was coarser than that for wheat flour, and only one grade of barley meal was taken off, a small amount of coarse meal or fine barley bran, and the husk, This husk of barley, unlike the bran of wheat, was not used for feeding. Barley meal, on account of its darker colour, was not as particular a job as flour, though the drying and grinding had to be done just as carefully.

Oatmeal Milling

It was always reckoned that a good miller was a man that could make good flour and oatmeal, though it is doubtful if the oatmeal was very clean, as here again we do not find any machinery in any mill for the cleaning of oats before being made into oatmeal.

The oats, always the best obtainable, was put on the kiln with a good sharp fire under it. Though rubbish might be used to dry oats for animal feed, only clean coke was used for oatmeal. I have heard it said that some millers put some 'shelling seeds', or the hulls of the oats on the fire when drying oats for oatmeal, and this was supposed to give the oatmeal a good flavour, I myself never liked the flavour produced by scorching the kiln.

For oatmeal, the oats would be turned often to prevent burning and the grain was dried much harder than for grinding for animal feed. It had what was described as a 'nutty flavour' when finished, though we find by 1940 that people detest this 'nutty flavour' and describe it as a burnt taste.

When the oats were dried, they were bagged and left until quite cold, Then the oats were shelled (no cleaning was done), To shell the oats a pair of stones was used, but unlike the wheat and crushing stones, these shelling stones dia not have any rows or furrows cut in them. Their faces were smooth. And to shell the oats they were run apart about three-sixteenths of an inch, though this width was varied as the shelling proceeded, The grain was put through sometimes only twice, but mostly three times, as the grain was dried hard. It was brittle when cold and the shells or hulls split off easily, Here again, if the oats were badly dried, the stones would not shell it properly and a great deal of work would have to be done to get the oatmeal finished.

After being shelled, the oats passed over a screen which took out the 'oat dust' and then it was passed over a fan which blew out the hulls. If the shelling had been badly done and the grains broken, a lot of the meal would be blown out with the hulls and lost, so it was important that the stones be set very true, or did not wink.

These stones, unlike the wheat and crushing stones, did not swing on the head of the upright shaft, but were carried on a spider fastened firm on the top of the shaft and the stone was with a tapered iron; this was pushed into the space between the stones at several different points around it until each point registered the same gap.

When the oats were shelled fairly clean, the next stage was grinding it. This was done on the shelling stone but it was lowered to give a nice even cut of meal, This meal was not passed over the screen, but brought down a separate spout.

I will now deal with hand-sifting as done by my father at the Killane in 1900 to 1923, Three sieves were used and we will use the coarse one first,

The sifting was done in what was called the bin, a wooden trough about 8 feet long by 4 feet wide and 18 inches deep. This made the top of the bin roughly three feet from the ground as it was standing on four legs about 18 inches high. Two bars were placed across the bin, about two feet from each end, and these bars were used to bear the weight of the sieve, The coarse sieve is first placed on one bar and a scoopful of meal is brought from the stone spout, put into A the sieve and sieved until only a few coarse grains are left. These are put into a shallow box on the floor and will have to be put through the stone again. This gettir a scoopful of meal from the spout and sieving goes on until the batch is finished. The stone is now stopped and the second sieving begins.

The other bar, at the other end of the bin, was now used, The scoopfuls of meal were taken from the other end of the bin, and the medium sieve was used this time and about half the quantity of meal would go through, leaving the broats in the sieve. These groats were now put into the hopper of the winnowing machine until the lot was sieved, then the groats would be winnowed - twice, if the shelling had been bad, and once if it was good. When this winnowing was done, any omall groats which had been blown out were gathered up and winnowed by themselves, and a few more pounds of meal would be recovered.

The third sieving was done in the same way as the second one described, but the fine sieve would be used, and only dust would go through this. The groats would be smaller as they were the meal which had passed through the medium sieve. The winnowing was again the same, though the handle of the winnowing mill would be turned slower this time.

When the sieving and winnowing was finished, the sharing out would begin, I forgot to mention earlier that about four sacks would be a batch, and these four sacks might belong to four or more people: perhaps it would be three sacks and two half sacks, or some bushels,

If the person wanted the oatmeal separate, a quantity of groats was put into the sack (which had been cleaned to receive the oatmeal) and some fine meal put on the top (again with a tie in the middle), If the remainder wanted mixed meal, the groat and fine meal were tipped into the bin and mixed up by holding a bar of wood, about nine inches long by three inches wide and half an inch thick, in the hand, and drawing the meal from one end of the bin to the other.

Two nails were driven into the side of the bin to hold the sack which stood on the floor, and it was held open with one hand while the meal was scooped in with the other,

When the meal had been put into the bags it was weighed out and each person got whatever the meal would divide out to.

A good yield of meal was obtainable by this hand-sieving method, as no waste was allowed to get away.

I used to be supplied with a box to stand on when sieving oatmeal as at that time I wasn't high enough to reach over the bin, and I also remember this job always gave me a headache, not that I disliked the job, but whatever shaking action the sieve had on me gave me the headache, The sieving had to be done in a rotary action, This kept the meal level in the sieve. If a push and pull action was used, the meal would tend to spill over the sides of the sieve, This would cause hulls to get into the fine meal or bread meal as it was called.

The colour of this oatmeal was a nutty brown, as you can imagine, and a supply was made at the beginning of the winter which would have to do for some months, and the "heavy drying" would help the meal to keep longer.

It was customary to put the oatmeal in a crock or tub and press it down firm, which made it airtight, and when some oatmeal was required it was scraped off the top of the solid pack.

Pearl Barley

Every farmer had a bushel of barley pearled at the beginning of the winter for broth, and barley pearled at the mill was as good as any.

The method was to kiln-dry the barley, after which it was put into a cylinder about three feet in diameter and sixteen inches wide (about a bushel at a time). Inside the cylinder was a stone, round in shape and about twelve inches wide and about two feet eight inches in diameter. This left a gap of about two inches all round the stone which held the barley; by making the stone revolve emongst the barley, it scored the husk off and a splendid example of pearl barley was thus obtained. No cleaning wae done to the barley prior to pearling, but it was winnowed after pearling to remove any dust or husks which might be amongat it.

The General Working of the Mill

The Miller in a small watermill would have to do most of his maintenance work himself, He would dress his own millstones (in England men were kept in the mill for this purpose, or else travelling stone-dressers would be engaged). The mill picks or bills were sent to the smithy to be pointed, and when they came back they would be ground to a sharp edge on a grinding stone, This was turned by hand, To get the stones ready for dressing, the hopper would be lifted out and the winch put across the hole, Then the feed hopper and beater would be taken off, Next the round cover, and any meal around the edge of the stones would be gathered up.

A crowbar would next be used to prize one edge of the top stone up until the winch chain could be put under it and fastened. Next the cradle would be put to the opposite side of the stone (this was a heavy piece of wood with a round the shape of the stone cut out of it) and this lot would be packed between it and the wall so that when the edge of the stone was lifted it would not slide out of position, and the lifting was continued until the stone was upright and then pushed at the top to make it lean against the wall. Had it been allowed to slide to the wall it would have been very difficult to get it against the wall.

The stones were now ready for staffing. This was a wooden bar about four feet six inches to five feet long, with the edge to be used "Shot straight". Lampblack and water were used to paint the straight edge of this staff, and then the staff (paint side) was rubbed over the face of the stones, This would usually show that the centre of the stone was high and this would have to be picked or dressed off, about halfway out on the stone; when the miller had been around it once, it was again staffed and if it still showed signs of being high in the middle, it was again dressed.

I might explain here that when the staff was rubbed on the millstone the high places would be coated with the lampblack, and as it was required that the centre of the stone be lower than the outer edge (to encourage the feed between the stones) and as it passed outwards, the stones became tighter together and before it could get out of the stones it had to be ground. If the centres were highest, the grain would be broken at the centre of the stones but it would be impossible to bring the outer edges together.

Next the furrows or rows would be cut out. These were tracks about one and three quarters of an inch wide extending from the centre of the stone to the outer edges and were used to carry air between the faces of the stones.

This job completed,the outer edge of the stone or face was cut or cracked. This was the part of the stones which did the actual grinding, and each miller had his own style. This cracking was not done in the case of the shelling stones as no grinding action was required in that case,

Next the bed stone or bottom stone which was stationery was tested for level and, if out of level, the wedges which supported it were driven further home as required, The "neck" was next oiled or greased. This was done by drawing the packing out of the three spaces around where the shaft, which carried the top stone or runner, came up through the bed stone. Looking down at the centre of the bed stone, it was like this: see plan (a) attached,

When this was done the shaft would be tested;. this needed a bar be put on the top of the shaft, like an arm, and a quill was inserted like a pin downwards to scratch on the face of the stone. By turning the pinion at the bottom of the shaft it made the arm travel around the face of the stone, and if the shaft wasn't true, the quill would scratch at one side of the stone and leave the other side clear. To counteract this the heel of the shaft would be pushed over to the side where the quill had scratched, and this would make the quill rise from that side, and by manipulat- ing the screws in this way, the quill could be made to scratch all round the stone, and it was then true,

The stone was now ready for re-assembly and this was done in reverse to the lifting. The stone was lifted from the leaning position by the wall to a vertical position, then pushed over to make it lower on top of the bedstone, If it had been prevented from slipping, it would lower down exactly into its place, but if it had been allowed to slip, considerable crowbar work would have to be done,

The corn would be put on, the feed hopper and beater, the winch put away, and the main hopper replaced, and we were ready for work again, As I mentioned earlier, should the stones run dry or without feed for a couple of minutes, this work would be undone.

How easy this mischief could be done might be gathered from the fact that if a lump of straw or a pice of stone had been neglected to be picked out of the oats when on the kiln, this would stop the feed and within a few mimutes the stones would be practically useless for grinding.

When the miller put the water on his wheel, he had to get the feed on the stones and also get the stones set to the proper grinding level. These were his governors: if the stones were too high and the feed too light, the mill would race, go quicker than was good for it; the feed would stick in the eye of the stone and not enter the grinding faces and trouble would soon develop, as the stones, though they had feed on, would not be receiving it. The miller had to know the tune of his mill, as this was his only guide as to how fast his stones were going, and though a certain amount of water was given to the wheel through the sluice, the speed of the stones would vary according to the amount of feed and the fineness of the grinding. For an example, if the stones wére being corn fed, the wheel would find difficulty in turning them at the proper speed. The speed could be increased by raising the stones, but this would make the meal coarse, The only thing would be to reduce the feed and lower the stones to the required fineness and strike a balance between the two, It was not unknown for the runner stone to jump off the head of the shaft when the mill raced too fast.

In the summer most mills got short of water and here again the miller's troubles were increased. He had to "fill dams". That meant he would be able to work his mill for perhaps an hour, then wait until the mill dam had filled up, perhaps two to three hours, and then he would do another hour's work, This would be done all day and all night. He would sleep only while the dam filled,

Where a miller did not have a dam, his only solution was to feed the stones very light, and in this way he got a little work done, but fate was good to him nevertheless. It was in winter when water was plentiful that he was busiest.

The miller's wife would be found in the mill helping, as such jobs as turning the kiln, emptying the kiln, hooking sacks on the chain on the bottom floor, and in some cases the miller spoke of his wife as "the best miller he ever wished to know".

Only in about two families do we find evidence tha the sons followed the father's calling, These are the Keigs and the Faraghers (and the Brews) and today,1950, we find out of the eight mills still working, four of them are worked be members of the Faragher family.

The Kella Mill

We came to the Kella Mill, Sulby, on 12th November, 1923. This was a bigger mill in every way to the Killane, though here again the principle of working was the same,

We had, in addition to the equipment at the Killane, an oatmeal sifter and a threshing mill.

There were four pairs of stones at the Kella Mill. These were described as the Crushing Stones, the Wheat Stones, the Barley Stones, and the Shelling stones.

The wheel took its water on a level with the axle about seven feet of a drop was available with a plentiful supply of water, though I have heard of waterwheels which could drive two or three pairs of stones at the same time. From experience I never found this to be very successful, as the pinions on the stones varied in size, and while one pair of stones would be going at their proper speed, the others would be too slow or too fast,

One of the repair jobs which we had to do shortly after coming to the Kella Mill was putting on a new kiln floor,

To do this father bought nine sheets of iron, each eight feet by four feet plain. These had to be drilled with holes about one inch apart, and my brother and I drilled them with a small drilling machine, The number of holes was roughly 40,000 !

Though we now had an oatmeal sifter, we found it rather difficult to use, As I have said before, we winnowed each size of groats separately. But though this oatmeal sifter did the three separations at once, it delivered the three sizes of groats over the one fan and the result was that the small groats were blown away, while the large seeds were not blown out of the groats, I got over this difficulty by fitting three fans, one to winnow each size of groats separately.

There was also a large number of rats in Kella Mill when we came, and we have caught as many as seventeen in one night. But catching was not enough. We realised that unless their home was destroyed and all means of entry stopped they would be there forever. It was a long hard job before the last rat was destroyed, and we felt we had got our job completed when we found they came into the mill with the water to the wheel. But this proved to be our last problem which was solved by placing a concrete slab one foot down in the race, in the water. They did not go down to get under it.

One can imagine the sort of oatmeal being produced when, as I described before, no machinery was installed in the mills for the cleaning of the grain. This was our next problem. As cash was scarce we had to make this machinery, and we made it four times before we said it would do. It was a big step forward, but it wasn't long until we went a long way further to make our product clean.

The winnowing mill as used for oatmeal was a much simpler job than the one used for grain, It consisted of a frame about four feet by four feet, a fan, hopper roller- feed, and two spouts, One took off the good meal, the other collected small meal on its way to be blown away with the seeds, The seeds were blown out at the end onto the floor.

The grain winnowing mill, though much the same in shape and size, had a fan and hopper, but in addition had a riddle. This was made to shake back and forward by a crank arrangement on the end of the fan shaft, This machine gave a separation of rubbish bigger than grain, thistle heads, etc. Good grain, weed seeds, and blowings which went out on the floor.

		Water powered Mills etc
Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML © F.Coakley , 2023