The Stone Floor

The Stone Floor 

The stone floor at Beeleigh Mill is above the spout floor where the hurst is located. In the 19th Century, five sets of millstones were installed here. These were removed after the fire destroyed the Watermill and damaged the Steam Mill in 1875. Beeleigh Mill remained derelict for many years. Essex and Suffolk Water made it weatherproof in the 1970s by installing a new roof and windows which preserved the engine, boiler and hurst but by this time the stone floor had been badly damaged by wet rot and woodworm.

The stone floor before restoration

 

 

The stone floor in 2025

  You can read the detailed story of the renovation of this area in  The Stone Floor Project Story.  

The Milling Process

A pair of stones, consisting of a bedstone and a runner stone weighing 1.5 tonnes in total, are made of a very hard stone called French Burr. The bedstone, which remains stationary, sits on the timber floor. The weight of the bedstone is borne by the wooden beams that are supported by the cast iron columns of the hurst. The weight of the runner stone is taken by the foot-step bearing in the tentering mechanism on the hurst. Both stones are inscribed with grooves called furrows and feathering which cut and grind the grain into flour. The grain is loaded into a hopper from where it falls by gravity down the vibrating chute called the shoe into the eye of the stone. The flour collected in the tun and from here was funnelled into flour sacks on the spout floor. The miller was able to vary the number of stones in use according to the workload or the need to dress stones or carry out maintenance.