Geograph - photograph every grid square

Suffolk has roughly 130 watermills listed as either lost, demolished, partial ruin or extant and converted to another use. Of these, either the mill or the miller's house, are now private houses, B&Bs or the larger ones, multiple occupancy flats. Watermills were by necessity beside a river or stream with enough flow to turn a waterwheel and the gears inside the mill. There are a number of options for the method in presenting the water to the paddles on the wheel. Undershot is where the bottom of the wheel sits in the flow. Breast shot is where the water is presented to the wheel halfway up and the wheel and doesn't sit in the stream. Overshot is where the water flows over the top of the wheel and is the most powerful of the three methods. A fourth method not used in Suffolk, is known as a pentrough or pitchback, which is similar to an overshot but turns the wheel in the opposite direction. See Link. Mills were used to grinding corn, making paper, extracting oil, sawing wood and numerous other jobs which are listed in the above Wikipedia article. created by Adrian Pye