Main parts of the mill

Tower:  45 feet high, built of Georgian bricks to 36 feet then of Victorian bricks; 21 feet diameter at base, 16 feet diameter at curb ring; 21 inch thick wall is rendered with lime mortar and painted with black Keim paint

Outside

Cap: Ogee shaped with oak frame, pine horizontal boards, cedar vertical boards; weighs 12 tons without sails and fantail, 20 tons with them; cap sits on oak frame (shears) and seven metal plates (pigs or skids)

Fantail:  Eight bladed wind vane on cap which turns cap to face wind at all times

Sails:  Five double shuttered (patent) sails, each 35 feet long, 10 feet wide, consisting of 20 shutters on each side of a central beam (whip) of laminated larch

Cross: Cast iron framework which holds the sails; also holds the spider which helps to open and close the shutters

Inside, starting in the cap

Curb ring: Cast iron ring on top of the wall on which the cap slides; guide wheels keep it on track; cogs on its outside mesh with teeth on the fantail mechanism to move the cap round

Windshaft: Hollow iron shaft tilted 10 degrees from horizontal, lies inside cap, is attached to cross at outer end, goes through centre of brakewheel and turns it

Brakewheel:  Ten feet diameter oak wheel enclosing the windshaft, has cast iron cogs round rim, transmits power from windshaft to wallower, also carries elm brake bands to keep sails still when mill is stopped; brake itself is a large oak lever engaged by chain down to ground level outside

Striking gear:  Iron rods, levers and cog wheels to open and close the shutters via the spider on the cross

Wallower: Large cast iron cog wheel at top of vertical drive shaft, moves power down the mill

Sack hoist: Device for lifting grain sacks up to dust floor; uses wind power via a  friction wheel engaged to the wallower underside

Drive shaft:  Vertical shaft with wallower at top, made of pine at dust floor level then of cast iron on lower levels, turns the great spur wheel

Grain bins: Old bins would have stored several tons of grain ready for milling with regular stirring to distribute moisture; our new bins are not used for grain storage

Chutes: Wooden ducts to bring grain by gravity from dust floor to stone floor, then to bring the milled meal (unsifted flour) from stone floor to meal floor

Great spur wheel: Cast iron cog wheel attached to central drive shaft, 6 feet 5 inches diameter, 103 teeth, drives the millstones (only one now) via stone nuts and quants

Stone nut: Small cast iron wheel with 29 cherry wood cogs, meshes with great spur wheel to turn the runner stone via a rotating square shaft (quant)

Millstones: Four feet six inch diameter stones made of joined pieces of quartz (French burr stone) or a solid chunk of granite (Derbyshire peak stone); each pair has a runner stone (rotating) and a  bed stone (fixed) between which the grain is cut; meal moves to outer edge and falls to meal floor through chute under floor

Tentering gear: Mechanism for regulating gap between runner stone and bed stone to control fineness/coarseness of meal

Hurst frame: Cast iron pillars and beams on meal floor to support millstones and other machinery

Electric motor: 15hp motor installed in 2011 as replacement for one used from 1930-1933, used for milling on ‘electric stones’ when there’s no wind to use the wind powered stones