This little water-powered corn mill was built in the early 1800s, with machinery dating from ca. 1840. It’s owned by the national Trust, but not open to the public.
https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/300024416-corn-mill-at-felin-gafnan-cylch-y-garn#.Xa3BnJNKjnQ
Water to power the wheel originally came from a diversion of the river Gafnan, but this has since been rerouted through the Cestyll gardens next door.
Pictures are a mixture of phone and camera.
Approaching from the gardens, the water wheel is in poor shape.
Ground floor - there’s no machinery for grading flour left except for the remains of some sieves on the right - the bits of wood on the left may be parts of the original sieve boxes.
The machine on the floor in the centre is a belt-driven chaff cutter (by Bentall, ca.1900 chaff is cut forage, usually straw or hay, added to bulk out animal feed).
The trough should be sticking out horizontally - straw loaded in the trough was dragged by the toothed rollers into the rotating blades.
At the rear is the usual arrangement of big cogs driven through the wall by the water wheel.
Wooden teeth meshing with cast iron gears was quite common, primarily because it gave smooth running.
The extension of iron teeth above the spur wheel (big wheel at the top in the first picture) to mesh with the smaller wheel with wooden teeth is apparently quite unusual.
This small wheel drives the drum above the chaff cutter….
…which was connected with a belt to another drum in the ceiling of the upstairs room which worked the sack hoist - the actual hoist mechanism has gone.
Grinding stones driven from below, with guard heron.
Final view, with the now-decommissioned Wylfa nuclear power station in the background - the decision whether to build another nuclear plant next door is imminent.
Of course it would be much cooler to use water power - anyone who has sailed down the Menai Strait will know all about the tides and currents in this part of the world.
https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/300024416-corn-mill-at-felin-gafnan-cylch-y-garn#.Xa3BnJNKjnQ
Water to power the wheel originally came from a diversion of the river Gafnan, but this has since been rerouted through the Cestyll gardens next door.
Pictures are a mixture of phone and camera.
Approaching from the gardens, the water wheel is in poor shape.
Ground floor - there’s no machinery for grading flour left except for the remains of some sieves on the right - the bits of wood on the left may be parts of the original sieve boxes.
The machine on the floor in the centre is a belt-driven chaff cutter (by Bentall, ca.1900 chaff is cut forage, usually straw or hay, added to bulk out animal feed).
The trough should be sticking out horizontally - straw loaded in the trough was dragged by the toothed rollers into the rotating blades.
At the rear is the usual arrangement of big cogs driven through the wall by the water wheel.
Wooden teeth meshing with cast iron gears was quite common, primarily because it gave smooth running.
The extension of iron teeth above the spur wheel (big wheel at the top in the first picture) to mesh with the smaller wheel with wooden teeth is apparently quite unusual.
This small wheel drives the drum above the chaff cutter….
…which was connected with a belt to another drum in the ceiling of the upstairs room which worked the sack hoist - the actual hoist mechanism has gone.
Grinding stones driven from below, with guard heron.
Final view, with the now-decommissioned Wylfa nuclear power station in the background - the decision whether to build another nuclear plant next door is imminent.
Of course it would be much cooler to use water power - anyone who has sailed down the Menai Strait will know all about the tides and currents in this part of the world.
