Discoveries

Tony has said all along that every time he goes into the Mill, he discovers something new.  These are some examples he has reported:

The most exciting thing we (the team) discussed was the discovery of a circle cut out of the timbers in the undercarriage to house a bedstone.  This had been buried under the floor, which was three or four boards thick in some places.  They obviously just added flooring whenever needed, rather than ripping anything up… Weight was added, holes were drilled, foundation stones were removed, joists were drilled, etc.  It is a real testament to the original design that the building didn’t collapse long ago.  We now want to figure out how to show this area, not burying it again beneath the floor… Glass? I will check with TriPyramid, which helps build the flagship Apple stores.

After the flooring was removed it revealed these beam rounded out for the bedstone from the grist era.

Back in early April we found a great spot where the belts came up through the floor between first and second floors in the first ell. Before that, surprises came up at every visit… the scribe-rule joinery, the English tying joints over gunstock beams, the old tubs for lacquering the turned handles, etc. The crew has found, as they have cleared the detritus, some interesting equipment such as cutting tools, grinding wheels, and many turned wooden pieces of various shapes and sizes. They also discovered a nameplate on piece of hardware we had been unable to identify.  I later discovered that it was a dowel maker from W. S. Hawker Mfg. Co. of Dayton, Ohio.

The dowel making machine is pictured to the right.