Tide mills were built for a variety of purposes, but probably their most common and best known use was grinding grain into flour: the grist mill. The heart of a grist mill, whether powered by tides, freshwater streams, wind or animal power, is its millstones. These disk-shaped, grooved stones are familiar to mill enthusiasts worldwide.
But how did people convert grain into flour before these stones and the methods for powering them became available? Mills Archive, an organization near London (U.K.) dedicated to preservation of mill history, recently sent out a reminder about an article on their website describing manual tools used for grinding grain since prehistoric times. And some of these tools, such as saddle querns, are still grinding grain in some parts of the world today.
Read “The First Milling Stones” on the Mills Archive website.
Note: This article is just one of an excellent series on the Mills Archive website and well worth exploring: “From Quern to Computer: The History of Flour Milling.”