Talk:Eling Tide Mill

Operation
Source Talk:Tide mill, where the miller placed this description !

I'm sorry if this seems really churlish, but to use material sourced in this way, even though I don't remotely doubt its truth, is well in breach of WP:NOR and WP:V if it hasn't been previously published. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I am the miller at Eling Tide Mill, the only fully working and productive tide mill left in the UK, and run the mill every day. The Mill only runs on the outflow from the pond, but it is incorrect to say it works on the ebb tide. The main limitation on milling is simply the tide height: the tide must be below the bottom of the waterwheel for the Mill to run efficiently - if the tide is on the wheel at all, there is too much drag for the wheel to run fast enough to produce flour in any quantity or of a good quality.

The actual running cycle is as follows:


 * 1) One-and-a-half hours after second high water (as we experience the double high water feature of the central section of the English channel) the ebbing tide reaches the axle of the wheel, and if I open the sluice the wheel will turn very slowly. We do this as a demonstration to visitors in the Mill at this time, but it wouldn't have been done in the old days as productively it is useless and just wastes water.
 * 2) Over the next hour the ebbing tide falls down the lower half of the wheel, the wheel continues running slowly, speeding up gradually as the drag decreases, but in fact I have to keep slowing it down as while the drive comes on in pulses as the blades ('buckets') pass in front of the jet of water from the sluice the drag is continuous, which creates a 'banging' on the wheel which, if allowed to persist with force could rip the waterwheel from the axle.
 * 3) Two-and-a-half hours after second high water, the ebbing tide falls clear of the lower blades and I can open the mill up and let it run freely.
 * 4) Over the next 5 hours the Mill will operate freely. For the first part of this time the tide is ebbing to low water. For the second part - which, given the tidal curve in the Solent and the Young Flood Stand feature, is actually the majority of our running time - the tide is flooding but is still below the bottom blades of the waterwheel. This is the important factor for running - the tide must be below the wheel, Which way it's going doesn't matter.
 * 5) At the end of the five hours, about two-and-a-half hours before the next first high water, the rising tide begins to cover and interfere with the bottom blades. The drag slows the Mill past the point of useful operation, and in the old days at this point milling would have ceased for that cycle of the tide.
 * 6) Over the next hour, the flooding tide rises towards the level of the axle. As with the ebbing tide in (2) above, we can still keep running (in the same direction, with the drive coming from the water in the pond), but only slowly, not productively, and only do it as a heritage site/ visitor attraction. this would not have been done in the old days.
 * 7) Once the flooding tide reaches the axle, the waterwheel comes to a halt, and no more running is possible as the tide continues flooding to first high water, oscillates between first and second high water, and ebbs for the first hour-and-a-half after second high water. We are then back to (1) above, and the cycle repeats.

We can therefore mill properly for 5 hours spaced around low water out of each 12 1/2 hour tide cycle, with an extra hour of slow demonstration turning on either side. The waterwheel turns in the same direction on the outflow from the millpond throughout.

Explanation of the ASIN B0000CNGOE
The Southampton Shores book has no ISBN (too old) so the ASIN number is given instead. It seems to me that ASIN is contrary to WP:EL but without the ISBN, I guess any link is better than none. (Northernhenge (talk) 20:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC))

Grammar matters
At present the article says:


 * It is the sole remaining operating tide mill in the UK that has a pair of independent waterwheels designed to drive a millstone each.

I previously corrected 'where' to 'that', but this doesn't change the sense of the statement, which implies that there are other working tide mills in the UK with different wheel configurations. This is in contradiction to the article tide mill and the 'individual testimony' above, which both imply that it is the only working tide mill, period.

I rather suspect that is a case of previous editor writing something different to what they meant, and that this is the only tide mill in the UK. But I'm not certain of this. Can anybody help. -- Chris j wood (talk) 13:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Chris, you left me a note on my talk page. This mill is the sole remaining tide mill which was designed with a pair of wheels which drive (drove) a millstone, each independently of the other.  If it is also the sole remaining working mill, then you may enjoy rephrasing the statement.  Actually you may enjoy it anyway :)  Fiddle Faddle (talk) 14:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I do love irony. "Different from", not "different to" ;) Fiddle Faddle (talk) 14:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, 14 months later, it seems that the sentence - implying that other tide mills still exist - is wrong, so I've broken it in two, and done some other small edits. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:03, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Intro section
Is it possible to edit the very first part of this page? HerStory (talk) 15:24, 20 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Whar do you want to edit? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 21:05, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

paper with a bit of information on the mill
Page 26:

https://www.hias.org.uk/Journal%20scans/HIAS%20Journal%202014.pdf

©Geni (talk) 12:34, 3 March 2021 (UTC)