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Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi
Salaams Jim and Keith, Slightly to one side ...That odd grindstone that I was tod was leaning against a wall on the river...I never found it. but...have a look at these .... what are they....? They are from the Shotley Mill shown. look at the striatians in the stone grinder faces....
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they are millstones for grain, the striations are grooves to allow the milled flour to work it's way out and fall down into a large funnel and then into the flour sacks underneath. the cylindrical wooden structures surround the stone and have an opening for adding the grain into the centre of the upper millstone which is adjusted in distance from the lower one depending on how fine the miller wants the flour. bit like a huge coffee grinder. the stones would wear and require regrooving , the propped up ones were likely spares. after they are too thin to reuse, they get sold to architectural salvage junkyards who resell them to trendy yuppies for inclusion as features in their homes and/or gardens.
see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC-wzAML-oY
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBEagbZxc6Y
solingen knife/sword makers used a vertically mounted stone. no occupational health and safety laws back then: