In the early 1980s and fresh out of engineering school, Kurt Dietrich was assigned to engineer a foundation restoration and preservation project at the historic Van Wyck-Lefferts tide mill in Huntington, N.Y. The stone work was deteriorating badly from the action of rising and falling salt water tides and needed repair to keep the 200-year-old building from falling into Puppy Cove on Long Island’s north shore. His solution: repoint the foundation stones and then protect them with a timber bulkhead to fend off the action of waves and ice.

At the time, Dietrich probably never imagined he’d be revisiting his project in 2023 when his 1980 solution was reaching the end of its lifetime. But that’s exactly what happened. Now he’s on the board of directors of Van Wyck-Lefferts Tide Mill Sanctuary and the old mill foundation once again needs attention. (But this is no criticism of the 1980s preservation project. Forty years is a respectable lifetime for a foundation structure under constant attack by 7-1/2-foot tides, storms, and floods.)

Continue reading “Preserving a Tide Mill Foundation – Again” →

Continue reading “New Life for Old Tide Mill Sites?” →

A 2005 paper by Roger H. Charlier, Lo’ic Menanteau, and Marie-Claire P. Chaineu was recently brought to the Tide Mill Institute’s attention by Dutch sculptor and artist Lex Elsevier. The paper presents “an overview of tide mills throughout the world with emphasis . . . on recent research in the Iberian Peninsula, from the Basque Country in the North to the Gulf of Cadiz in the South, and the restoration of several mills in Brittany (France) over the last decade or so.”

Tide mill enthusiasts will enjoy reading this 18-year-old report not only for the historical information it contains, but also for its call to resurrect small scale tide mill sites for providing power locally. These days, the idea of exploiting smaller energy sources for local consumption is called distributed generation.

“The Rise and Fall of the Tide Mill,” appeared in Ocean Sciences Bridging the Millennia. A Spectrum of Historical Accounts published by the Journal of Coastal Research.

Read “The Rise and Fall of the Tide Mill” courtesy of the Flemish Marine Institute (VLIZ. be).

The 2023 tide mill conference scheduled for October 28, 2023, has been postponed until the spring of 2024.

Leadership of the Tide Mill Institute regrets this last-minute postponement, but decided it is prudent because of ongoing emergency conditions in parts of Maine and out of respect for the victims of the tragic mass shooting in Lewiston on October 25. The suspect in the shootings is still at large and may be in the region.

The conference will be rescheduled for the spring of 2024 and notice will be sent when a date has been chosen. Those who used a credit card to pay the registration fee for the October 28, 2023, conference will see a refund to their credit card account within a few days. Those who paid by check will have their check returned.

Tide Mill Institute extends condolences to the families and loved ones of the October 25 victims and is grateful for the ongoing efforts of law enforcement agencies to protect the public and apprehend the suspect.

British film maker and writer Colin Collis generously offered Tide Mill Institute photographs of two tide mill paintings by Victorian artist Alfred Omega Townsend (1845-1917) for posting on the TMI website. Information about the subject, a tide mill in Falmouth, England, is scarce, but a 2005 report about Falmouth by the Cornwall & Scilly Urban Survey project speculates that the tide mill probably was established in the late 1600s and ceased operation in the 1860s. Remains of the mill pond walls were examined as recently as 1988 when the area was developed as a marina.

Thanks to Collis and the Falmouth Art Gallery, we’re able to share three contemporaneous images of the mill. All were painted while the decaying structure still stood: the two below by Townsend and a third by William J. Boase Smith (1842-1896). The Smith painting, “The Old Bar Mill/The Old Bar Pool,” hasn’t been cleared to post directly on the TMI site, but it can be viewed on the art gallery’s website by clicking here.

One might wonder how many other examples of tide mill art exist in museums, galleries and private collections. If you know of any, please contact Tide Mill Institute. If possible, we will share them with our followers.