with a stone rolling-pin. Such mealing-stones are also in use in South America.[1] They have been occasionally found in Britain, and the annexed figure shows a pair found in a hut-circle at Ty Mawr,[2] in the island of Holyhead. Others have been found in Anglesea.[3] Similar specimens have been obtained in Cambridgeshire and Cornwall, and Mr. Tindall had a pair found near Bridlington. A mealing-stone with the muller was found in Ehenside Tarn,[4] Cumberland. I have myself found a muller at Osbaston, Leicestershire. A pair of stones from the Fens[5] is in the museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Some large blocks of flint, having a flat face bruised all over by hammering, have also been found in the Fens, and may have served as mealing-stones.
Fig. 170.—Holyhead.
The same form of mill is found also in Ireland,[6] and not improbably remained in occasional use until a comparatively late period. Fynes Moryson[7] mentions having seen in Cork "young maides, stark naked, grinding corne with certaine stones, to make cakes thereof;" and the form of the expression seems to point to something different from a hand-mill or quern, which at that time was in common use in England. The name of saddle-quern has been given to this form of grinding apparatus. In the Blackmore Museum is one from the pit-dwellings at Highfield,[8] near Salisbury, which are not improbably of post-Roman date; and in the British Museum is one found near Macclesfield.
- ↑ Rev. Dr. Hume, "Illust. of Brit. Ants. from Objects found in S. Amer.," p. 69.
- ↑ See Arch. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 244, where much information is given concerning such stones.
- ↑ Arch. Journ., vol. xxvii, p. 160, &c. Arch. Camb., 2nd S., vol. iii, p. 210; 3rd S., vi. 376; vii. 40; viii. 157; 4th S., xii. p. 32.
- ↑ Arch., vol. xlvi. p. 285.
- ↑ Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. vii. p. 245.
- ↑ Wilde's "Cat. Mus. R. I. A." p. 104.
- ↑ "Itinerary," 1617, pt. iii. p. 161.
- ↑ "Flint Chips," p. 62.
