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Glossary

Water mill; Watermill

A place where the passage of water onto paddles - falling or being pushed vertically or horizontally - turns, through mechanisms, millstones to grind a material down. Such materials might be crops, for animal or human consumption, chemicals or stone, (such as flint), which require reduction in size or the removal of un-necessary parts. (See also threshing barn). Gathering ponds, millraces, dams and sluices are all parts of a watermill complex. The earliest watermills in the region are connected with the Romans on Hadrian's Wall - there were mills at Cawfields and Chesters, (both Northumberland).

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