TURNED OUT NICE. PART 1. (20/10/09)

After a night and morning of torrential rain I couldn't decide what to do. The dog had to go out so decided to walk down to the Tide Mill. Melin Heli in Welsh, which was going to be the title of this post. One thing led to another and realizing that wet is wet decided to include the castle on the itinary whilst we had the world to ourselves. A small consideration being that the entry fee to the mill also included entry to the castle.
  THE FRENCH TIDE MILL CAREW........This building dates back to 1541, and there are records of a mill on the site previous to this. Why it's called a french mill is open to some conjecture. The most likely explanation being that the french used tidal mills on the long winding creeks of Brittany and that the Normans built it. The other, less likely in my opinion, is that they employed French millstones, that they certainly did, for here is one.
      These are made up in segments then iron bound and were regarded as superior to the one piece Derbyshire stones. You can hardly expect me to agree, scurrilous propaganda by those Normans I think!
      This wheel controls the sluice allowing water onto one of the two water wheels, included out of whimsy. Why have an arrow pointing in two directions. What other direction could the wheel possibly go in. Must have something to do with the French and arrows, never were very good with them.

Ground floor view and first floor with a grinding wheel.

Winding drum for hauling sacks of grain to the top of the mill and I think the second is a rotary sieve for flour grading. My bit of paper got too wet to be of help I'm afraid.
This is a winnowing machine and removes the husks from the wheat, this is bran and was obviously sold straight to Kellogg!
   What is this doing here? It's a hearse.....The mind boggles....especially in the light of the following information. When the mill became uncompetitive in the early 1930's it was used briefly for the grinding of bones for fertilizer.
Had the devils own job in here, natural light from windows, tungsten bulbs, the odd mercury lamp and for all that it was as black as a witches hat. All but the first interior image and the last are shot with off camera fill flash, the other two with on camera fill. The young lady looking after the place came to see what I was doing, having no other customers, so was co opted into holding the flash gun.
'I won't feel a tingle will I?'
' You shouldn't, but be sure to let me know if you do!'
Interesting place, also acquired two more nature guides in the Collins series so half a good day.
Am into this semi sepia look, if you don't like it say so. I'm not promising it will make any difference but feel free to express an opinion.
That's all.