The hand-mill formed with an upper rotatory stone is a mere modification of the pestle and mortar, and dates back to a very early period, though it has continued in use in some parts of the British Isles even unto our own day. The name quern, by which such mills are usually known, occurs in closely similar forms, in all the Teutonic dialects. In Anglo-Saxon it appears under the form Cweorn or Cwyrn, and in modern Danish as Qværn. An excellent example of this instrument, which had been, up to 1850, in use in the cabin of a Kilkenny peasant, was presented by the Rev. J. Graves to the Archæological Institute, and is described and engraved in their Journal.[1] The upper stone is of granite, the lower of millstone grit. The lower stone is recessed to receive the upper, and has a central depression, in which a small block of oak is fixed, from which projects a small pin—also of oak—to carry the upper stone. This is about 2 feet in diameter, and is perforated at its centre with a hopper-like hole, across the bottom of which a small bar of oak is secured, having a recess in it to receive the pin, but only of such a depth as to keep the upper stone at a slight distance from the lower. Through the upper stone, and near its verge, a vertical hole is drilled to receive a peg, which forms the handle for turning it. When in use it is worked, as in ancient times among the Jews, by two women seated opposite each other, who alternately seize and propel the handle, so as to drive the stone at considerable speed. The corn, highly dried, is fed by handfuls into the hopper in the runner or upper stone, and the meal passes out by a notch in the rim of the nether stone. Pennant,[2] in his "Tour in Scotland," describes querns as still in use in the Hebrides in 1772. They were said to cost about fourteen shillings, and to grind a bushel of corn in four hours, with two pair of hands. He gives a representation of a quern at work, with a long stick, hanging from the branch of a tree, inserted in the hole in the runner, so as to form the handle. A somewhat similar method of driving the hand-mill indoors, taken from a German MS. of the fourteenth century, has been reproduced from a work by Drs. Von Hefner and Wolf in the Archæological Journal.[3]
A sketch of a hand-mill in use at the present day, at Abbeville, is given in C. Roach Smith's "Collectanea Antiqua."[4]
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.[5] 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,[6] Kent, was probably of no great antiquity.
