Winchester City Mill Guide for
Teachers and Group Leaders
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CONTENTS
We want you and your group to have an exciting and informative time
at Winchester City Mill. This pack is intended as a detailed guide with
ideas for teaching points to prepare you for your visit to the Mill or
any related classroom-based work.
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Introduction
City Mill Timeline
The River Itchen
The History of Making Flour
How the Water Mill Works
The Grinding Process
Stone Floor
Lower Floor
Wildlife
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INTRODUCTION
Working watermill in the heart of Winchester
This historic mill is owned and cared for by the National Trust and is a
rare surviving example of an urban working corn mill, powered by the
fast-flowing River Itchen, which can be seen passing under the mill.
Rebuilt in 1743 on a medieval mill site, it
remained in use until the early
20th Century. The National
Trust recently undertook
an ambitious restoration
project, and the mill
resumed grinding flour
in March 2004.
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CITY MILL TIMELINE
A millennium of milling history
Our mill is one of the oldest working watermills in the country; with a fascinating
past and a great many historic connections.
871-899
King Alfred rules the Kingdom of Wessex from Winchester; a thriving and bustling town with
a population of several thousand people.
989
Queen Elfrida (mother of the Saxon King, ‘Ethelred the Unready’) gives a mill at Eastgate
(known as ‘Eastgate Mill’) to the Benedictine nuns of Wherwell Abbey.
1086
The Domesday Book, ordered by William the Conqueror (The Normans),
records a mill outside Eastgate owned by Wherwell Abbey paying a rate of 48
shillings per year to the Abbess. It is the most valuable mill in Hampshire.
1295
At the end of a prosperous period in milling, a new tenant, William the Miller,
pays 4 pounds in silver as rent per year. In return, the abbess promises to supply
'any great timbers' the mill needs.
1348
The 14th Century sees a succession of poor harvests, so there is less corn to grind
into flour. The Black Death (Plague) arrives in England and hits Winchester,
reducing the population and the mill’s importance further.
Competition from nearby mills, built by the Norman Bishops of Winchester, is
the most probable reason Eastgate Mill becomes derelict by the 15th Century.
1536-1540
Henry VIII orders the Dissolution of the Monasteries. All abbey possessions and
land (including Eastgate Mill) go to the Crown. The confiscated land is redistributed.
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CITY MILL TIMELINE
1554
Marriage of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain in Winchester Cathedral.
Queen Mary presents the still derelict Eastgate Mill to Winchester,
partly to repay the cost of her wedding. The name ‘City Mill’ appears for
the first time.
1662
Leases, which continue until 1820, show that tenants have to pay “10 shillings per
annum to the City and two chickens for the Mayor.” Leases require tenants to
rebuild but nothing is done so the mill remains derelict.
1744
James Cooke, a tanner of The Soke (SE of the river), rebuilds the mill at last, reusing
the medieval roof timbers. A new period of prosperity begins for the City Mill.
1820
The mill is sold to John Benham, and his family owns it for over 100 years. There is an
unsuccessful attempt to sell the Mill in 1892.
By the end of the 19th Century
The Victorian Revolution. Flour milling has moved to the major seaports where large
factory mills with iron rollers have been built to handle imported wheat. The flour is
distributed to customers using the extensive railway network.
Traditional water mills are rapidly declining.
1914-1918
During World War I, the mill is used as a laundry.
1928
The mill is threatened with demolition. A group of local benefactors
raise money to buy the mill and give it to The National Trust for safekeeping.
1931
The newly established Youth Hostels Association (YHA) rents the mill from the National
Trust. Hostellers wash in the millrace. They end their lease at the mill in 2005.
2004
A 12-year restoration project is completed and flour is made again for the first
time in perhaps 90 years. The power of the River Itchen is harnessed once more.
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THE RIVER ITCHEN
The River Itchen is about 45km (28 miles)
long. It begins its journey in the chalk hills
near Cheriton and is joined by the River
Alre and the Candover Stream, close to the
town of Alresford. After passing through
Winchester and driving our mill, the Itchen
makes its way to Southampton where it
flows into the sea. Its flow varies little
throughout the year making it ideal for
driving a mill.
The Itchen is a good example of a fastflowing, chalk groundwater fed river.
When rain falls onto the 400 sq. km
catchment area – including chalk downland– it soaks through the chalk rock into a
massive underground reservoir or aquifer. The chalk acts as a filter and the water
emerging from springs is very clear, very alkaline and at a remarkably constant
temperature (about 50oF/10oC).
Harnessing Water Power
Transportation
Water power has been harnessed for corn-milling, papermaking,
In the 12th Century, the
tanning, fulling (wool-processing) and generating electricity. At one
river was navigable for
time there were 12 mills within the City of Winchester.
small crafts from
Should we use more water power today;
Southampton to
a great source of sustainable energy?
Alresford. Stone from
Quarr was brought from
the Isle of Wight by
barge and used in the
Water Meadows
building of Winchester
Farmers diverted water to flow across fields close to the river in
Cathedral. The last barge
winter. The moving water produced an earlier grass crop on which
travelled from
sheep and cattle could feed. Evidence of these channels can be
Southampton to
seen in the Winnall Moors Nature Reserve and near St. Cross.
Winchester in 1869.
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THE HISTORY OF MAKING FLOUR
If you want to make bread, biscuits or cakes, you first have to make flour. You do
this by grinding grain or cereal.
Early History- Quern Stones
Quern stones, stone tools for hand-grinding, were first
used during the Stone Age to grind cereal grains (such as
barley, oats, rye and wheat), nuts and other vegetable food
products for eating, as well as pigments and metal ores prior
to smelting. One of the earliest forms of quern was the saddle
quern. People put the grain on a big flat stone (‘quern’) and rubbed it backwards
and forwards with a small stone (‘handstone’)
We know from studying the skeletons of people
from the Stone Age that they spent a long time
kneeling down and rocking back and forth to grind
their grain by rubbing it just like this. They had to
spend 5 hours every day just grinding grain to make
enough flour to feed their families.
~Teaching points~
Where does the name ‘saddle’ come from? (The saddle quern is named as such
because the motion of rocking or rolling the handstone forms a shape looking like
a saddle)
It was not easy to produce flour from a saddle quern; the handstone was used to
crush the grain, rather than grind, and produced a rather coarse flour. Would
grinding in this way take a long time?
You can try this yourself. How long did it take you to make a small amount of
flour? How long would it take you to make half a kilo of flour? You would need
this much to make a loaf of bread. Was your flour fine and white like a bag from
the supermarket, or was it rough, brown and full of little bits of stone?
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THE HISTORY OF MAKING FLOUR
Rotary Querns
The rotary quern was invented during the fifth to third centuries BC. As the name
implies, the rotary quern uses circular motions to grind materials, meaning both
the quern and the handstone were circular. The handstone of a rotary quern is
much heavier than that of saddle quern and provided the necessary weight for the
grinding of grain into finer flour.
Did you know…?
…In India, rotary querns were
used to grind grains and spices.
Smaller ones, for household use,
were operated by two people.
Larger ones, for the community
or commercial use, used livestock
to rotate the top stone.
The grain enters the quern through the centre hole (‘eye’) of the top stone
(‘runnerstone’) and moves to the edge as it is ground, coming out from between
the two stones as a coarsely ground flour.
~Teaching points~
Have a go turning the rotary quern at the Mill. Is it easier to use? Could you make
flour faster?
Rotary querns are hand-powered. What problems might that cause? (They are
limited in size and milling capacity by the strength of their operator; such
methods are time intensive and laborious; they only produce enough ground flour
for a household)
In many poorer countries, people mill cereals by hand today. Querns were still used
in remote parts of Britain in the 20th Century. Can you find out where these places
are?
In Medieval times people could be fined for milling flour by hand and their querns
could be confiscated by the Lord of the Manor. Many people were forced to use
the Lord’s watermill or windmill and pay a toll.
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THE HISTORY OF MAKING FLOUR
Mills and Mill Stones
As the demand for food grew and populations increased, there needed to be a
more efficient method of producing flour. But bigger stones meant they were too
heavy to turn by hand. Initially, some places used donkeys, horses or slaves. With
time, where there was a good river, watermills were built. These water-powered
mills were common by Roman times and used much larger circular-shaped stones;
mill stones. These produced a finer flour than that produced by hand held tools.
Materials
Many mill stones in Britain are made with hard-wearing
quartz from France and, although expensive, they
lasted for 50 years or more. They are not cut from one
piece, but built up from sections of quartz, cemented
together with plaster, and bound with iron bands.
Our mill stones were made by a specialist manufacturer in
Holland in 2007 and contain quartz and basalt to give the
same performance as French stones.
Patterns
Mill stones are not flat underneath. Grains of cereal are very tough and if the mill
stones were flat the grains would just roll between the two stones and would not
grind into flour. So each mill stone has a series of special grooves (‘furrows’) cut
into its surface. When paired with another mill stone, the grooves make a kind of
scissoring motion creating the cutting or grinding function of the stones. The
grooves are also at an angle so that when the mill stone turns, the flour is pushed
towards the outside and is squeezed out.
As the stones are used, the furrows gradually become worn and must be refreshed
or ‘dressed’. This work was often done by the miller himself, but in any areas you
would find travelling stone dressers, who would travel from mill to mill doing a
few days’ work here and there.
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HOW THE WATER MILL WORKS
Waterwheels come in several varieties but which type you can build is largely
dependent on the local geography.
Some water mills are built where the water comes from high up so the water flows
over the wheel. These are called over shot water wheels because the water shoots
over the wheel.
Other water mills are built over a river so that the water flows under the wheel.
These are called under shot water wheels because the water shoots under the
wheel.
Over shot
~Teaching points~
Which sort is Winchester Water Mill? (Under shot)
Which water wheel do you think is more effective? Why? (With an over shot wheel,
the weight of the water does all the work, meaning quite a lot of milling can be
done with very little water. In comparison, the under shot wheel is inefficient
because it relies on huge quantities of water moving at considerable speed to drive
the mill)
Why is the River Itchen a good place to build a water mill?
Why must an under shot wheel fit accurately? (To prevent water from escaping
round the sides)
Where might you build an over shot water wheel? (At the bottom of a waterfall,
side of a hill)
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THE GRINDING PROCESS
The grain we use is cleaned before use to separate the wheat from the
chaff (the dry, scaly protective casings of the cereal grain), so that we
have clean seed grain to mill.
Raised platform
Hopper
Horse
Wooden chute
Damsel
Shoe
Crook String
Eye
Runner
stone
Nip
Bed
stone
Floor
Floor
Second chute
Did you know…?
…We mill English wheat and produce 20-30kg of strong wholemeal flour per
hour. Our mill stones can only produce wholemeal flour since the whole grain
seed passes between the stones. Historically, millers sieved the flour to
produce whiter grades for the wealthy.
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STONE FLOOR
In the centre of the Stone Floor are the mill stones and so-called ‘stone furniture’,
which provides a constant flow of grain when milling.
The sacks of grain are first lifted to the raised platform
using a sack hoist. The sack hoist is operated by a series
of pulleys and gears, which was once powered by the
waterwheel; now we use a manual hoist
The grinding process begins when the miller empties the
sacks of grain down the wooden chute into the storage
hopper above the mill stones.
The ‘shoe’ under the hopper
shakes grain into the centre, or ‘eye’, of the upper
rotating stone, known as the ‘runnerstone’.
The ‘damsel’, which protrudes from the eye of the
stone and rotates at the same speed as the mill stone,
strikes against the shoe causing it to shake. Thus, the
flow of the grain increases as the speed of the mill
increases.
Bell
The bell, fixed to the ‘horse’ (the wooden frame supporting the hopper and shoe),
provides a warning if the hopper becomes empty. Should this happen, the stones
would run without grain and flour between them. This could lead to rapid wear
and perhaps damage to the stones. Even worse, it could cause a fire as sparks
would be produced when the stones touched.
Normally, the weight of grain in the hopper holds back the bell. If the hopper is
empty, the bell tips forward. The rotating damsel then shakes and rings the bell.
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STONE FLOOR
~Teaching points~
Why does the grain need to be shaken? (Controls the amount)
What is the force called that makes the cereal fall down the chutes? (Gravity)
What 3 variables determine the quality and quantity of the flour? (1.The speed of
the runner stone - amount of water allowed through the sluice gate; 2. Amount of
grain fed into the eye – angle of the shoe adjusted by the crook string; 3. The gap
between the mill stones – adjusted by the tentering gear)
Why might the ‘damsel’ be named so? (It is said that the damsel is named as such
because of its incessant chattering! This constant chatter was a useful sound to
the miller since it gave him an indication of the speed of the stone)
Millstones
The grain passes between the runner stone and the lower, stationary, ‘bed stone’
and is ground into flour, which is thrown from the edge of the stones. The runner
stone should rotate at 60 revolutions per minute or above to mill high quality
flour. The two mill stones weigh just over 1 tonne combined; that’s equivalent to a
small car or two horses.
Finally, the milled flour passes down a second chute to the lower floor, where it is
collected in sacks. Originally, miller would have hoisted the sacks through a trap
door leading to the stone floor; now we carry the sacks up the stairs.
~Teaching points~
Why do the mill stones have grooves cut in their grinding faces? (To make them
more abrasive and to move the grain from the centre of the stone to the edge)
Apart from water power, what other kinds of power could be used to drive the
stones? Would it be possible to turn one of these stones by hand?
Why would the spread of railways force small local mills like City Mill out of
business? (Competition from big mills using cheaper imported cereal grain pushes
prices down so bakers can buy from the cities more cheaply than at local mills)
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LOWER FLOOR
Millraces
Millraces are the channels conducting
water to, or from, a water wheel. The
channel leading to the water wheel is
called the ‘head race’ and the channel
leading away from the wheel is called
the ‘tail race’.
The Mill
sits on an
island in the River Itchen. The flow of this section
of the river is divided at the top of the garden,
where stop boards control the right-hand channel.
This millrace is not currently in use, although you
can see the remains of a sluice gate mechanism
suggesting there must have been a second water
wheel here at some stage of the Mill’s history.
Most of the flow of river is in the left-hand channel
flowing towards the Mill’s only water wheel.
In between the right and left channels is a narrow race, known as the ‘slip
channel’, with its own sluice gate. This is lowered to provide additional flow
through the water wheel when the water levels are low.
~Teaching points~
At what time of year might the slip channel need to be used?
The miller used to lower a net into the head race, why? (To catch fish)
Millers could also make extra money by building wooden traps in the headrace,
why? (To catch eels)
Why is the grating placed in the head race leading to the water wheel?
What other machines/mechanisms are powered by water?
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LOWER FLOOR
Sluice Gate
A sluice gate in front of the waterwheel is
used to control the mill. The miller has to
raise a lever which in turn raises the gate.
This mechanism is very similar to that
which is used to raise a paddle on a canal
lock. You can see the controls for the sluice
gate by the wall near the millstones on the
Stone Floor.
Raising the gate allows water to pass under
the waterwheel and the force of the
moving water makes the wheel turn. Closing
the gates stops the mill working. The height of the sluice gate determines how
much water hits the wheel and consequently the speed of the mill.
~Teaching points~
When you are at the Mill, you will see the sluice gate machinery on the wall next to
the door leading to the mill garden.
If the miller wanted to make it easier to raise the sluice gate, would he make the
lever longer or shorter?
What other machinery uses this type of mechanism?
Why do we need all these gears and cogs to raise the gate? (It is too heavy to lift
without the help of gears)
Back at school; create your own mechanism to raise a gate.
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LOWER FLOOR
This diagram shows how the mill machinery on the Lower floor works together to
grind the grain into flour.
Vertical Shaft
Great Spur
Wheel
Water Wheel
Millstones
Axle
Wallower
Stone
Nut
Pit Wheel
Did you know…?
… People have been using hydro power (a type of energy that is produced
from moving water) to power machinery for thousands of years. More than
2,000 years ago, the ancient Greeks and Romans used water wheels to drive
mills to grind grain. Around 200 years ago, there were 30,000 water mills in
Britain. These were used to power all kinds of machinery.
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LOWER FLOOR
Water Wheel…
Winchester Mill houses one
water wheel, in the left-hand
channel. It is the source of
power for the Mill’s flour
grinding and is driven by the
force of water striking the
wooden ‘floats’ or paddles,
which are simple flat boards.
The present wheel, custombuilt in 2005 to replicate the wheel installed in 1744, is made of cast iron and oak
and is 2.8 metres in diameter. It makes about 7 or 8 revolutions per minute when
milling flour. An under shot wheel such as this is not very efficient. The floats are
not a close fit in the channel so water can flow over them and through the centre
of the wheel. This means that of the 7 ½ kilowatts of water power available from
the River Itchen, little more than 1 kilowatt is extracted to drive the mill stones.
~ Teaching points~
How is the water from the head race pushed around the wheel and into the tail
race?
What materials are used to build a water wheel? What properties do they need to
have?
Watch the waterwheel turning and notice how the gears turn as a result.
Look through our printable resources to find out how to make your own working
water wheel.
Back at school; write an explanation text or set of instructions on how the water
wheel drives the milling machinery to grind grain into flour.
Calculate the radius (d÷2), circumference (πd) and area (πr2) of the wheel.
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LOWER FLOOR
…and its Gears
The water wheel is connected to the stones by gears
and is mounted on a heavy, horizontal, wooden axle
which turns the…
Pit Wheel
Mounted on the opposite end of the axle, this is a
large gear wheel with a cast iron frame and 66 oak
teeth. The pit wheel engages with, and drives, the
smaller, cast iron…
Wallower
The wallower is a small gear with 34 teeth situated at
the base of the vertical shaft. It rotates the vertical shaft which in turn drives the...
Great Spur Wheel
Sitting at the top of the vertical shaft, this large gear has 96 hornbeam teeth. It
drives the…
Stone Nut
This rotates at about eight times the speed of the water wheel. The stone nut is
the small, cast iron gear with 23 teeth which sits below, and directly drives, the…
Runner Stone
The runner stone is the top stone in a pair of mill stones on the Stone floor. This,
along with its partner the lower stone (‘Bed Stone’), grinds the flour.
~Teaching points~
What is the purpose of all the gears? (They increase the speed of milling so that
the millstone turns faster than the water wheel. The Great Spur Wheel also
allowed mills to drive two or more sets of millstones from the same water wheel)
If a large gear turns a smaller gear, which goes around faster? How much faster?
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LOWER FLOOR
Look carefully at the machinery on the Lower floor and you will see:
The Chute
Down which flour drops from the mill stones on the floor
above.
Tentering Gear
This is the pivoted wooden beam
which supports the stone nut. The
miller raises or lowers the rotating
runner stone using the handle at the
end of the beam. In doing so, he increases or decreases the
gap between the stones, an operation called 'tentering'. This
gap (‘nip’) helps determine the fineness or ‘grade’ of the
flour; the smaller the nip, the finer the flour.
Crook String
The second control, used by the miller to adjust how much
grain is fed into the mill stones, rises to the floor above and
raises or lowers the ‘Shoe’. This increases or decreases the
amount of grain being fed to the stones.
~Teaching points~
Why might a miller want to make both coarse and fine
flour?
What does increasing the flow of the grain do to the flour? (Makes it coarser, while
decreasing the flow makes finer flour)
How do the sacks of flour get on to the top floor?
Try a sample of our flour. Is it fine or coarse? What does it taste like? Is it different
to the flour you use at home?
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WILDLIFE
Although the City Mill is in the centre of Winchester, it's a location remarkably
alive with wildlife.
What can you spot here?
The crystal-clear waters of the Itchen teem with trout and even occasional
salmon. Water voles are regularly spotted, kingfishers fish off the walls outside
and a family of grey wagtails feeds on abundant
mayfly and other insects in the garden.
Otters on the River Itchen
We're lucky to be one of the few urban UK
locations where otters are regularly recorded
passing through.
In 1994, three otters were
reintroduced to the River Itchen.
Since then, these rare and elusive
creatures have thrived. In the late
1990s, a joint project between us and
the Hampshire and Isle of Wight
Wildlife Trust was set up to install
observation equipment.
The otters’ regular adventures are captured
by a series of motion activated cameras that
record them as they emerge from under the
Mill to mark territory with ‘spraint’
(droppings) during hunts for food. During
your visit, you can enjoy clips from regularly
updated archive footage and view the live
feed from our cameras along the river.
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