A sketch of a hand-mill in use at the present day, at Abbeville, is given in C. Roach Smith’s “Collectanea Antiqua.”[1043]
Even in the neighbourhood of water-mills, when the charge for grinding was at all high, we find these hand-mills in use in mediæval times. Such use, by the townsmen of St. Albans, was, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, a fruitful source of litigation between them and the abbots, who claimed the monopoly of grinding for their tenants.[1044] Thirteen of these, however, maintained their right of using hand-mills, as having been enjoyed of old, and some claims were raised to the privilege of grinding oat-meal only, by means of a hand-mill.
It seems probable that these mediæval hand-mills were of large size, and with a comparatively flat upper stone, like the modern Irish form, which is sometimes 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. One, 3 feet in diameter, found near Hollingbourne,[1045] Kent, was probably of no great antiquity. |259| The same may be said of a six-sided quern, with an iron pivot, found in Edinburgh.[1046] A quern, found at West Coker,[1047] Somerset, with a fleur-de-lis over the passage by which the meal escaped, has been assigned to the thirteenth century. The lower stone of a quern accompanied an apparently Saxon interment at Winster,[1048] Derbyshire. It was of the beehive[1049] shape, and made of millstone grit. Similar querns, with iron pins, have been found at Breedon,[1050] Leicestershire, as well as others with the upper stone more conical. One of this class was also found near Rugby.[1051] They frequently accompany Roman[1052] remains, but these are generally of smaller size, and of a more hemispherical form, the favourite material being the Lower Tertiary conglomerate, or Hertfordshire pudding-stone. Those of Andernach lava, from the Rhine, are usually flat.
A complete quern was found at Ehenside Tarn,[1053] Cumberland. The upper half of another was in a post-Roman circular dwelling, near Birtley,[1054] Northumberland.
Querns of various forms are of frequent occurrence in Wales, especially in Anglesea. An upper stone from Lampeter,[1055] Cardiganshire, has a semicircular projection at the margin round the hole for the handle. In some districts[1056] they have been in use until quite recent times.[1057]