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Water mills harness the power of water to perform industrial tasks such as grinding grain and spinning fabric. They have been used for thousands of years and can still be found in some areas. Water mills require a source of water and use a water wheel or turbine to generate power. They were expensive to build and maintain, so were often made available to all residents for a fee. Water mills have been used for lumber production, metal processing, and other tasks. Some ancient water mills have been transformed into residences and hotels for visitors.
A water mill is a structure in which the power of water is harnessed to carry out an industrial process such as grinding grain, fulling wool or spinning fabric. Watermills have historically been used in many regions of the world for a wide variety of tasks and continue to be actively used in some areas. It is also possible to visit the restored water mills, kept in good condition because they are of historical interest; such mills are sometimes used in demonstrations to show people how they would work.
Obviously, a watermill must be placed near a source of water to generate power. The watermill is built right next to or above the water, with a water wheel or turbine of some shape suspended in the water. As the water moves through the waterwheel, it pushes it in a circular motion, moving gears within the watermill that can be used to perform various tasks. The basic concept of the watermill appears to be at least 2,000 years old, as numerous examples from China, ancient Greece, and the Middle East indicate.
A classic use of a water mill is to grind grain into flour, with the use of a large millstone. Watermills can also be used in lumber production, to process various metals, and to perform a variety of other tasks. With the use of a water mill, people could greatly increase industrial efficiency, producing a large volume of material at once. Without a watermill, people would have had to use human or animal labor to accomplish the same tasks, and that would have eaten up a lot of time.
As watermills would have been expensive to build and maintain, they were generally made available to all residents of a surrounding area, who could use the watermill for a fee; by keeping the use open, the operator could ensure that the watermill remained profitable. In some cases, the fee would be exchanged; a miller, for example, might take a fixed percentage of the milled flour from customers, reselling the flour to finance the upkeep of the mill. Watermills have also historically been among the first of the structures installed on a new site in heavily forested areas, allowing people to process lumber into lumber for construction.
Many people find the watermills very interesting to visit, and for this very reason some ancient examples have been transformed into residences and hotels. In these cases the mill is obviously not working, although the water wheel may be left in place because people find it interesting to look at.
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