[MR] BBC: Welsh Castles

[Garth Groff]

Noble friends,

Today the BBC is featuring a brief slide show with ten views of Welsh 
castles. Or more properly, views of mostly English castles build in 
Wales during Edward I's conquest. Very nice slides: 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17861853 .

The photo for Carew Castle mentions a tide mill. Though intact, this 
mill is no longer working. The current structure and machinery date from 
the late 18th/early 19th century. A tide mill has been on this site 
since since at least the 1500s. And what is a tide mill, you ask? Simply 
a water mill which is powered by tidal water flowing back and forth, 
supplemented by water stored in ponds at high tide that can be released 
at low tide. Tide mills used to be common in the low-lying coastal areas 
of England (and there were some in the US too). Only four such mills 
remain in Great Britain, and only two still work. You can read about the 
Carew mill in the Wikipedia entry for Carew Castle: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carew_Castle . The Eling Mill in Hampshire 
can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eling_Tide_Mill . The 
apparently recently restored Woodbridge Mill in Suffolk has its own web 
site: http://www.woodbridgetidemill.org.uk/ . These mills are really out 
of our period, but the technology was common enough in the SCA times to 
make them a legitimate item for study.

Kind regards,


Lord Mungo Napier, Avid Mill Enthusiast