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The Mill Workings
The mill building itself sits astride the mill stream and houses two independent mills sharing the same stream.
The larger part of the building is on the bank away from the river Otter, while the smaller part sits on the island formed between the mill stream and the river. The mill machinery in the larger (left) side is no longer functional mainly because the waterwheel needs complete re-building. The smaller part houses the working mill with one pair of stones in use. Both mills originally had two pairs of milling stones, four pairs in all, and for much of its life it was the largest water mill in Devon.
The mill stream probably predates the middle ages . It has three sets of sluices gates. The head sluice which controls the water intake from the River Otter to the mill stream, the middle sluice which is a by-pass to divert excess water to return to the river and to control flooding in the village, and a third set, just ahead of the waterwheels, allows for final adjustments. This third sluice consists of three gates; one gate for each waterwheel and a third to release the water when the waterwheel sluice gates are closed.
These sluices and the stream have to be regularly checked, repaired and cleared of weeds and sediment. |
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History of the mill
Educate yourself on the inner
workings of the mill
[Click here]
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Milling
Interesting information on the
milling process and the stones.
[Click here] |
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The Waterwheel and Machinery.
The two waterwheels are each 3m. in diameter, and were made in the first half of the 19th Century, replacing previous wheels in the same position. The design is based on Poncelet's breast shot wheel (but without the sideways jet of water which makes this design more efficient).
It is difficult to determine the horse power as there is a considerable wastage of water inside the wheel chamber, but each of the two wheels is capable of simultaneously turning two mill stones, each 1.2m in diameter and weighing about one tonne each. The left hand wheel has wooden buckets which are angled and it still has the original wooden wheel shaft (this left hand side of the mill is no longer in use). The right hand wheel, which has been restored, has curved iron buckets and the wheel shaft has been replaced by one made of steel. The waterwheel turns the main vertical shaft through a cast iron crown wheel and pinion, with a ratio of about 2.5 to 1.
The top 'rotating stone' is turned by another vertical shaft from below, through the centre of the 'fixed stone' which sits on the floor of the first storey," the milling floor".
The rotating stone and shaft are driven by the vertical shaft via a great spur wheel and pinion, with a ratio of about 4 to1. This pinion wheel can be disengaged by raising it above the spur wheel to stop the stone rotating.
A horizontal lay-shaft is driven via another crown wheel and pinion. This is used for auxiliary work such as hoisting grain, flour conveyors and elevators or any other machinery as needed by the miller (originally before milling took place, sacks of grain had to be hoisted to the hopper store at the top of the building but now the grain is blown in, directly from a bulk carrier).
Both the milling stone and the lay-shaft rotate about ten times for each rotation of the waterwheel. The yield is between 50 and 70 Kg of wholemeal wheat flour per hour. The great spur wheel and the lay shaft crown wheel have wooden teeth turning cast iron pinions. |
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