Talk:Watermill

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[edit] Is this article too narrow?

Are "watermills" really confined to milling grain? What is the word that describes the buildings containing all the other industrial applications of water wheels to power forge bellows, trip hammers, paper mills, and all the other accoutrements of the early industrial age?

Atlant 17:45, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, too narrow

I live in a converted water-powered mill over 100 years old. Although their is extensive evidence of the existence of an enclosed waterwheel and associated flume and races, there is no evidence that grain was ever milled here.

The valley around me once boasted 15 mills in less than four miles of stream. At most, one of them (according to the documents and maps at my disposal) was a grist mill (flour mill). The rest were barking mills, spoke mills, and sawmills. ALL OF THESE WERE WATERPOWERED AND DID NOT GRIND GRAIN.

Somebody has incorrectly equated water-powered mills with grist mills, and has introduced the spurious term "grinding mill" which is not used in the United States to refer to historic structures (although perhaps it is a late 20th century mining term). I have met four professional millers (and count two as my personal friends) and none would ever refer to a grist mill as a "grinding mill".

I'm going to make a few edits here and there and see if I can pull this stuff together, including the floating gristmill entry.

--Charlie Brooks, 2005-10-11

Additionally the reference to tidal (or tide) mill needs to be updated. There is a stub article on tide mills that shoul be referenced when the sub is large enough. In the meantime I have edited the "tidal mills" words to link to the stub

Fiddle Faddle 09:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. From my point of view in England there are a host of applications of watermill technology to power machinery. Few of these seem to be listed here. Peterkingiron 21:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling of leat

I believe the correct spelling should be leat. A quick search on Google was as follows:

• Mill leat - 219,000 entries
• Mill leet - 334 entries

Rellis1067 16:34, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that the spelling leet is ever used in this context, and suspect someone is having a joke based on leet. Unless anybody can come up with a citation for the use of leet for a mill race, I propose we remove it. Alf Boggis [[User_talk:Alf_Boggis|(talk)]]

I've checked on this before. Here, from Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1952) , is the definition:

leet, n. A leat; a flume. [Obs.]

Obsolete, but real.

Atlant 11:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not recall seeing the spelling 'leet' in this context. Peterkingiron 21:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

But I gave you a citation to exactly this meaning.

Atlant 23:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)