More information : [TM 2533 6442] Saxtead Mill [NAT] (1)
In good repair and working order, Saxted Green Mill is open to the public. No trace of earlier structures. Under Guardianship. (2)
No change to report of 15.11.73. (3)
According to its listed building description, the mill was built in the late 18th century and underwent considerable modernisation in the 19th century. (4)
See sources for information. (5-8)
Description of Saxtead Green Mill
Th earliest known reference to a windmill at Saxtead occurs in a Framlingham survey of the year 1309, when the spindles and millstones were reported to be in good condition. Village mills, like churches and castles and manor houses, tend to occupy the same site for generations, and we may thus visualise a mill having stood on this spot for at least the last 650 years. We certainly know that the mill was standing on her present site on 6th June 1796, the earliest date we have relating to her in more recent times. She was then worked by Amos Webber. He was succeeded by Robert Holmes, for whom the mill house was built in 1810. Then followed George Holmes, William Holmes, a Mr Meadows, a Mr Aldred, Mr A. Eldred and finally Mr A.S. Aldred, who died in
1947. It is not known when or by whom she was built, but two firms of millwrights Collins of Melton in the 1870s and Whitemore and Binyon's of Wickham Market in the 1850s and 1890s, both undertook considerable repairs to her, while from 1926 Mr. J. Wrightman assisted the last owner.
She is a corn mill and produced flour until the period of the 1914 War, when, like many other country mills, she was forced to go over entirely to grinding feeding stuffs for animals. She is
of the type known as a 'post mill', the whole body or 'buck' (A)* of the mill containing the machinery and carrying the sails being turned to face the wind on an upright post (B), as will be described later. It is worthy of note that the post mills of East Suffolk were the finest of their type, not only in England but in the world. Looking at her from outside, we see the buck with the white-painted weatherboards of the breast extending beyond the the sides and those of the sides beyond the tail, while both extend downwards to form a 'petticoat' over the roof of the painted brick 'roundhouse'. The total height is 46 ft, of which the roundhouse accounts for half, and the whole mill is extremely well proportioned.
The buck was turned automatically to face the sails square into the 'eye of the wind' by the 'fantail' or 'fly' (c) at the rear. There is a ladder at the tail of the mill leading up into the buck. Wheels at the bottom of this ladder run on a track round the mill and the fly is mounted in tail supporting 'fan carriage' (D) fixed to the ladder and is connected by gearing to the wheels. Each of the six blades of the fly is mounted at an angle on a wooden arm, and each arm is fixed into a socket in a
cast-iron hub mounted on the horizontal 'fan spindle' carried in bearings on the top of the timber uprights of 'fan spars'. So long as the sails are square into the eye of the wind the fly presents only the edge of its six blades to the wind; but when the wind veers it strikes the blades at an angle so that the fly turns, and, through gearing, turns the wheels and hence the buck until the sails once again face square into the wind.
The span of the sails is 54 ft 9 in. They consist of a wooden framework built on either side of a backbone or 'whip'(E) and divided into seven sections or 'bays'. These bays each contained three hinged shutters of 'vanes'(F) like the slats of venetian blinds. Each vane has a wooden back carrying the centres on which it pivots in iron flats or 'keeps' and a framework of wood covered
with white painted canvas. The vanes vary in length from 60 in. to 22 in., those on the 'leading side' of each sail being shorter than those on the 'driving side', but all were 12 in. wide. To avoid wind drag, as the mill will not be working, not all the vanes have been replaced. At the end of the cast-iron 'windshaft' (G) carrying the sails is a head or 'poll', which consists of two sockets at right angles to each other. Into each of these sockets is wedged a stout pitchpine timber, projecting equally each side and known as a 'stock'(H), and to the front of each stock are bolted two sails. Four other shorter timbers known as 'clamps'(J) are bolted to each side of the stocks to strengthen them.
There is a hole through the centre of the windshaft and an iron rod, called the 'striking rod',passes through it and projects front and back. At the front of the rod, is fixed a four-armed cast-iron coupling called the 'spider'(K), which is connecting irons' to twin bars or 'working uplongs' passing down each sail; to these bars the vanes are connected by cast-iron levers or 'cranks'. At the back of the striking rod at the tail of the windshaft is a geared rack. A small pinion gears with this and on the pinion spindle is mounted a large wheel, over which an endless 'striking chain'(L) hangs down to the platform at the top of the ladder. By pulling one side or other of the chain, the
chain wheel and pinion are revolved. The rack, and hence the striking rod passing through the windshaft, is moved backwards or forwards, and by means of the cross, harps and connecting irons and working uplongs, all the vanes in all the sails are opened or shut simultaneously. The action is something like opening and shutting an umbrella. It makes it possible to 'put the power off' with all the vanes open or 'put the power on' with all the vanes closed without stopping the mill. Weights were hung on to a separate pendant chain which is captive to the chain wheel.
The mass of these weights could be varied according to the power required. When the force fo the wind overcame the effect of the weights, it opened the vanes and blew through them. The mill was thus governed for speed; this was 'spilling the wind'. The brick roundhouse has three floors and contains two pairs of stones and other machinery, which was driven by an oil engine. It also serves to protect the substructure of the mill, by which is meant the 'post' on which the mill turns and its supporting timbers. These consist of two heavy horizontal beams called 'cross trees'(M) at right angles to each other and with their ends resting on timber packing on the top of tall brick piers; the post is quartered over these beams......four projecting horns at the bottom of the post fitting into the angles formed by the cross trees. Althought he post takes the whole weight of the buck this weight is transferred to the ends of the cross trees and hence to the brick piers by four diagonal struts or 'quarter bars'(N). These are mortised into the post just below the bottom floor of the buck and are kept from slipping off the ends of the cross trees by 'bird-mouth joints'-v-shaped notches in the cross trees engaging with similar projections on the bottom of the quarter bars. The mill, although not fixed to the brico piers in any way, is so designed as to be inherently stable on them.
There are three floors to the roundhouse and from the top floor, looking up,......of the bottom floor of the buck, for there is no top to the roundhouse roof; the buck covers it and the petticoat gives added protection. Below the bottom floor of the buck can be seen two heavy supporting timbers called 'sheers' or 'shutter trees(o), which run close to the post fore and aft the entire length of the floor. With two short connecting timbers, also bearing on the post, they form, in addition, a steady bearing, preventing the buck from swaying about on top of the post. In each of the two upper floors of the roundhouse are four double-flap trap doors with leather hinges, through which sacks of grain could be hoisted from the ground floor through a similar trap in each floor of the buck and emptied into the storage bins on its topmost floor. As one goes up the ladder and enters the first floor of the buck its trapdoor can be seen on the left-hand side. Facing the visitor is the upper half of the post, here sixteen-sided, which projects through the floor and sokets into a heavy horizontal beam called the 'crown tree'(C), which extends across the width of the buck and looks, on the post, like the top stroke of a letter T. In order that the weight of the sails and stones may be balanced properly the crown tree is forward of the centre-line and it is braced to the sheers below
the floor by two vertical iron tie rods on each side of the post, while two diagonal tie rods at its ends brace it to the front corner posts.
Round the post, at floor level, are four shaped wooden segments or 'wears'(Q), which are loose and can be raised to allow the steady bearing below to be greased while a rope fillet resting on top of them keeps out the dust. To keep the post from splitting, the lower part on this floor is encircled with three wrought-iron bands, and the top part is cased in a cast-iron corset, the top of which bears on a cast-iron flange bolted to the underside of the crown tree; this arrangement serves as an additional bearing to take the weight of the buck on the post. Between the post and the breast of the buck a horizontal tie beam, extending from side to side, supports the lower or 'foot-step' bearings of the two cast-iron 'stone spindles' on which are balanced the upper or 'runner stones'(s), of the two pairs of stones on the floor above. The lower or 'bed stones'(T), which are stationary, rest on wooden frames in the floor itself and most of the undersides of them can be seen from below. The two pivoted cast-iron levers below and parallel to the beam are the 'bridge trees'(R), or 'brays', and each carries the toe of one stone spindle; each assembly, including the runner stone balanced on top, can be raised and lowered by means of a screw and large wing-nut. By this means the gap between the stones can be altered according to the speed of the mill, the grain to be ground, and the degree of fineness of meal required.
Once this gap was set it was kept constant, whatever the speed, by centrifugal governors(U) linked to each of the bridge trees by two further levers called a 'bray' and a 'steel yard' respectively.
The governor consists of two bob weights held by links to a fixed and a sliding collar on an upright shaft, which is driven by belt from one of the stone spindles. At rest the bob weights hang down close to the shaft; but when it turns, centrifugal force causes them to fly out, making the sliding collar on the shaft rise. The greater the speed the farther weights the fly out and the higher the collar rises. The collar turns in a fork on the end of the steel yard, which thus has to follow its movement and moves the bray, bridge trees, stone spindle and stone which, with an increase of speed, tended to rise slightly like a hoop whirled round on a stick. The action of the governors, however, is to lower the stone and maintain the gap between runner and bed stone constant. This method of adjustment of the stones allows the mill to get off easily in a light breeze and to make the best use of a choppy wind. In the breast of the buck are two wooden 'meal spouts'(V), down which the meal from the stones was shot into sacks hung below them; while fixed to the framing of the buck are two wooden twist pegs, which, by means of cords passing up to the floor above, were used to adjust the flow of grain to the stones and were a further aid to maintaining the required fineness of grinding. The miller stood by the spouts, felt the meal between his finger and thumb, and adjusted the twist pegs and bridge treescrews. If the sails turned too fast he could, in a few paces, reach the platform at the head of the ladder and adjust the weight controlling the shutters in the sails, so all his controls were handy on one floor.
On the second floor can be seen the two pairs of stones side by side in the breast of the mill, each enclosed in an octagonal wooden casing.* On top of each casing is a wooden frame or 'horse' (w) supporting a wooden 'hopper' like an inverted pyramid, and wooden spouts from the grain bins on the floor above the feed hoppers. The grain flowed from the hoppers into inclined
wooden troughs or 'shoes' and from thence into a circular hole or 'eye' in each runner stone. Passing between the revolving runner stone and the stationary bed stone it was ground into meal as it travelled to the outer edge, and because of the enclosing stone-casing eventually found its way through a hole and down the meal spout to the wating sack on the floor below.
The drive to the stones came from the 'brake wheel'(Ww), of which only a small portion can be seen. It is mounted on the wind-shaft which carries the sails and gets its name from the fact that a contracting brake acts on its rims and is used to stop the mill; the heavy wooden brake wheel has 128 iron teeth, cast in segments and bolted to its face. It is geared with a cast-iron bevel wheel called the 'wallower'(x), which has 40 teeth cast on it and is mounted on the cast-iron 'upright shaft'. On the same shaft immediately below the wallower is the cast-iron 'great spur
wheel' with 56 teeth cast on it and this in turn drives the two cast iron spur pinions or 'stone nuts'(Xx), each of which has 18 wooden cogs mortised into it. Each stone nut is mounted on a
vertical cast-iron 'crotch' spindle or 'quant' or rectangular section, the bottom of which is forked and is connected to an iron bar cemented across the eye of the runner stone by means of
a cast-iron coupling called a 'mace', and thus the power was transferred from the wind, through the sails and gearing, to the stones.
Each wooden shoe was held by a spring against the quant which shook it as it turned and caused the grain to run down them into the eye of the stone. A horizontal 'spindle' beam(Y) above the stone carries the top bearings of the upright shaft and the two quants. If the drive to a stone was to be disengaged the iron strap holding the cap of the quant bearing was loosened, the quant was swung sideways out of the bearing and held by a strap, with the stone nut out of gear with the great spur wheel.
To give warning of the hoppers running out of grain a 'bell alarm' was used. A leather strap is fixed low down on the inside of the hopper and a cord at its other end pases out through a hole in the other side of the hopper. This cord passes round a pulley, up and over a floor joist above, to a 'trail stick' to which is fixed a bell. As long as there was a plenty of corn in the hopper it pressed on the strap and kept it taut. When it ran low the combined weight of bell and trail stick made the latter fall against the teeth of the wallower, ringing the bell and warning the miller to replenish the hopper.
The top floor of the mill is largely taken up with bins for the grain to feed the hoppers and to this end wind power was used to drive a 7sack hoist' (z), This consists of a long drum formed by nailing substantial wooden battens along the length of a wooden shaft, which runs parallel to the ridge of the roof. To this drum the 'sack chain' is fixed and was wound up on it when sacks were raised, passing over a pulley in the roof and down through the double-flap trap doors to the ground floor of the roundhouse.
The drive to the sack hoist is from a wooden pulley mounted on the windshaft close to the brake wheel. A slack belt passes round this pulley and up round another pulley on the end of the chain drum, which normally it did not drive. But a lever with a jockey roller on it could be pressed against the slack belt to tighten it and this was done by pulling the 'sack cord' which, like the sack chain, passed down to the ground floor of the roundhouse. If the mill was turning, the tightened belt would drive the sack drum and wind up the chain, hoisting any sack hitched to the lower end so long as the cord was held. When the sack reached the top floor the cord was slacked off, the belt no longer drove and the sack was emptied into one of the bins by band.
The big wooden brake wheel has four arms arranged to form a hollow square at the centre, and is of the type of construction known a 'clasp arm' since the arms clasp the windshaft. The latter is of iron and has cast on it:
JOHN WHITMORE
WICKHAM MARKET
SUFFOLK 1854
The mill has been lifted on the brickwork three times altogether and this date may possibly be that of the second lifting, carried out for William or George Holmes. Originally she had four 'common sails', on which sail cloths were spread individually by hand, a wooden windshaft, probably a single pair of stones in the breast and a 'tailpole' at the rear to push her round into the wind by hand instead of an automatic fantail. The roundhouse was then between 8ft and 9 ft high at the eaves and the sails swung near enough to the ground to hit a pig. The mill was placed in the guardianship of the Ministry of Works (now the Department of the Environment) in 1951 by Mr S. C. Sullivan, son-in-law of the late Mr A. S. Aldred, for preservation under the Ancient Monuments Acts. Between 1957 and 1960 the Ministry carried out a thorough overhaul of the structure again with the assistance of Mr. J. Wightman, the local millwright.
The account roll presented by the various manorial officers to the lord of Framlingham 'Magna' at Michaelmas 1279 refers to the rents received from the various windmills in the town. The combined income to Bigod from the 'Six-sailed mill' and the 'Four-sailed' mill totalled #7 6s. 9d. per annum. There was another windmill working at 'Frithawe' situated elsewhere. Additional money, 20 shillings, came from the timber of another old mill, four-sailed, which had fallen into disuse. It seems possible, therefore, that the windmill built at Saxtead shortly after this replaced one which had been abandoned and perhaps made use of the derelict mill's material to a very small degree. At this time, Framlingham had a thriving economy based squarely on the growing of cereal crops, particularly wheat.
In common with most of the manors on the heavy lands of northern and central East Suffolk, agricultural output in general seems to have been at a peak in the late thirteenth century. The construction of mills of all types to process the farming products was similarly at a high level.
The manorial accounts for Framlingham for the year ended at Michaelmas 1287 make it clear that the windmill at Saxtead was a new venture very probably on a virgin site. According to the
tally of Robert Ficele, 21 shillings have been spent on digging out the "Great Mount" from new for 'planting' a new windmill.
The making of the woodwork from new was put out to carpenters as piece-work costing the lord of the manor 73s. 4d. The mill-stone cost 33 shillings; unfortunately, the document does not indicate its place of origin nor the method of bringing it to Saxtead. Fifty iron bars at 2 1/4d. each were bought for making eighty 'mailles' for the post, collar and 'Daggestone', for binding the
wheel of the mill in several places and for making from new two mill-spindles with nynds. The spindles and nynds were apparently remade from older specimens and the work cost a further 5s. 3d. Eighteen bars of steel were bought at 6d. each and processing them for use cost 4 1/2d. They were probably for facing the neck and tail journals of the windshaft. For the sails, 110 ells of canvas were purchased at 9s. 2d. and the thread for 'suing' them 4d. The lock on the door cost 2 1/2d. with its keys and 'staples'. Two trundle-wheels or windlasses were made for the mill at 11d., iron nails cost 2s. 2d. and a 'cuva' (probably an iron hoop placed round the wooden stone casing) cost 51/2d. with its nails.
The total cost of all the manorial windmills in that year amounted to #9 13s. 10 1/2d., practically all that sum being incurred at Saxtead, the only other items mentioned being a pair of trundles bought for the 'six-sailed' mill at Framlingham. An estimate of the total building cost is not really feasible. To the expenses at Saxtead there should be added a number of less obvious labour and transport costs. For example, from the large stock of 'labour works' due in the summer from his villeins (unfree tenants), 140 works were expended by the lord on 'raising the mount of the new mill at Sastead' and digging a ditch round it throwing the earth on to the mount, a process familiar to the constructors of 'mottes'.
Finally, when all was completed, there was the trail run. A miller received twelve-pence for preparing the mill. A bushel of corn worth 5d. was bought for 'the first milling'. The account does not infer that any further work or expenses were needed.
CONVERSION TABLE
1ft 0.3m
5ft 1.5m
10ft 3.0m
15ft 4.6m
20ft 6.1m
25ft 7.6m
30ft 9.1m
35ft 10.7m
40ft 12.2m
45ft 13.7m
50ft 15.2m
100ft 30.5m
GRAPHICAL MATERIAL OMITTED. (9-10)
See source for details. (11)
According to its record kept by Suffolk HER, the mill stopped working in 1947. (12)
Recorded by NRIM. Photos available. (13) |