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The Mill's Tale
Jump to:
Introduction |
Drinkstone Mill |
Pitstone Mill |
Stanton Mill, part 1 |
Stanton Mill, part 2 |
Conclusion
Introduction (2:52 - 3.9MB)
In this documentary, Mark Horton (from BBC2's Time Flyers) take us on a
tour of three of the oldest surviving postmills in England,
investigating how they were built and how they function.
The 20 minute video is divided into 6 chapters here for ease of viewing,
although note that all segments are a few megabytes in size.
This video was directed and produced by Shevaun Fergus, supported by the
NEH grant for Building Community: Medieval Technology and American
History. At a few places in the video, we have had to extract the
manuscript images due to copyright restrictions, but otherwise it
remains intact.
Watch the video
Drinkstone Mill (3:24 - 4.9MB)
Mark visits with Rosy Hayward, owner of the Drinkstone Mill in Suffolk, and discusses the state of her (and many other) mills, how time takes its toll on these magnificent structures, and how they hope to restore the mill. For more information see Windmill World and the Friends of Drinkstone Mills.
Watch the video
Pitstone Mill (5:08 - 7.3MB)
Visiting one of the National Trust's flagship mills, Pitstone mill in
Buckinghamshire, Mark discusses how a mill works structurally and how it
(should) pivot in the wind. In order to save Pitstone the wear and tear
of thousands of visitors, they have had to put in additional supports,
fixing the windmill facing west.
For further information, see Wikipedia. The mill is not open that often, but for possible opening times, see the National Trust’s page on the mill. 
Watch the video
Stanton Mill, part 1 (7:23 - 7.6MB)
Visiting Stanton Mill in Suffolk, Mark gets to see sails and gears
turning. This mill still grinds flour on occasion. This is the longest
section of the video, so see part two immediately following.
There is limited information on this mill at WindmillWorld. 
Watch the video
Stanton Mill, part 2 (4:27 - 6.4MB)
Conclusion (1:44 - 2.4MB)
And so the importance of the medieval windmill is revealed. Given that
a good mill could do perhaps one hundred pounds of flour an hour with
both stones running full-tilt, and that only if the wind was right, the
scope and scale of flour production in the Middle Ages from windmills
shows us how important they were.
Watch the video
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