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Quote:In the guide book it's called a horse mill. Perhaps 15' diam. However, there's no central post hole and if the stone was trundling round in the trench how would whatever was being crushed be got out? There seems to be no 'drainage hole'. It's within the curtain wall and next to a bake house.
This is at Middleham Castle. What is it?
This is the question from BAJR Facebook..
any ideas??
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a horse mill. But with no horse?! A mystery indeed. Richard III spent a bit of time at Middleham, perhaps this could be the origin of his famous exclamation? :p Seriously though, several Googled sources date this horse mill to the 16th century, which suggests that it was a documented conversion. Elsewhere it is linked to malting and brewing activity on the site. See page 2 of this publication
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publi...tle-15.pdf As for the lack of a central posthole, well it lacks one now but I doubt it had turf in it's centre 500 years ago....
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THe malting/brewing is what I was wondering... given teh location near the bakery as well... I will ask merryn dineley to comment
The lost horse may be a vital clue to the king mystery... perhaps horses were disappearing in this area frequently
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Myself and a colleague stared at the thing and raised the same query when we were working there a few years back (never pay to get in is my policy, you're bound to work there eventually...have done pretty well so far...) - we concluded that either a wooden post would have been earth-fast (good for 1000 years+ indoors), or someone had found a secondary use for the socket stone.
Alternatively its a circular communal netty (which is obviously what the original Round Table was) and its the drain thats missing...
