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This is a glossary of terms used in describing windmills,
some of which are specific to windmills in the Kent region, it is
intended to help you to understand the descriptions of Kent's
windmills provided in this section.
Body: or buck, the moveable chamber of a post
mill which contains the machinery.
Bridge beam: beam supporting the spindle on
which the millstones rest.
Cap: the revolving top of a smock or tower mill
supporting the sails, windshaft and fantail.
Fan stage: the framework at the rear of the cap
which supports the fantail.
Fantail: a vertical fan of six to eight vanes
which automatically operates the mechanism to turn the cap and keep
the sails facing into the wind.
Governor: a device comprising rotating
fly-weights and levers that automatically maintains the correct
distance between the millstones, according to the strength of the
wind.
Great spur wheel: the main driving wheel.
Leading board: a narrow board fixed to the
leading edge of a sail.
Main post: large fixed vertical timber post
weighing about one and a half tons, with a pintle at the head on
which the body of a post mill pivots to be faced into the wind.
Pintle: onion-headed timber bearing at the top
of the main post in a post mill. Often replaced by a flanged cast
iron bearing known as a Samson's Head.
Post mill: a mill with a rotating body
supported on a central main post.
Roundhouse: a building around the trestle of a
post mill.
Sails:
- Common: latticed wooden frame over which
sail-cloth was fixed to suit strength of the wind.
- Double shuttered: sails with shutters on both
leading and trailing sides of their whips.
- Patent: sails with shutters capable of
automatic adjustment by the striking gear even whilst
rotating.
- Single shuttered: sails with shutters on the
trailing edge only.
- Spring: sails with hinged timber shutters, set
before operating the mill, and connected by a spring-loaded lever
which allows the shutters to open if struck by a gust of
wind.
Shutters: hinged timber vanes on the sweeps,
connected by the shutter bars.
Smock mill: a mill with a
fixed wooden tower, usually of eight sides, with a revolving cap at
the top.
Stock: a tapered timber to which whips
supporting sweeps or sails are fixed.
Sweeps: local term for sails used throughout
Kent and Sussex.
Tentering gear: the mechanism for setting the
initial gap between the millstones.
Trestle: the supporting base structure to a
post mill.
Tower mill: a mill with a round brick tower and
revolving cap at the top.
Uplongs: longitudinal timbers bracing the sail
bars.
Weatherboarding: the overlapping shaped timber
planks covering the framework of a post mill body, smock or
cap.
Whip: the principal longitudinal member of a
sail.
Winding: turning the sails into the
wind. |