A vegetable mill

If you speak French you’ll realise that the item we look at today is just that – a vegetable mill for it says so on the handle.

The handle of a vegetable mill or Moulin-Legumes in French

And there we have it – Moulin – Legumes which must be French for Vegetable mill

And here’s the whole device.

The whole mill. Plates with different mesh size could be used.

Clearly small pieces of vegetable could be dropped into the container and when the small handle was turned the veg would be pushed through the holes into a waiting dish underneath.

We believe this device, which was made in France, dates from the first half of the twentieth century. They were invented by Jean Mantle in 1932 and can be used for all kinds of food – not just vegetables.

WE also think it probably had a big red (or maybe yellow) handle to use when turning the device. That is missing from our example.

These devices were used worldwide but ours, of course, has Market Lavington provenance having belonged to a White Street family.

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Cornbury Mill

Not long ago we showed a picture of a man apparently fishing in the stream by Cornbury Bridge – just a few yards below the old water mill known as Cornbury Mill.

The stream, which marks the boundary between the two parishes of Market and West Lavington, flows right under the mill so it has parts in both parishes.

Back in 1953 a local newspaper picked on the mill as one of the scenic gems of Wiltshire.

Cornbury Mill – a newspaper photo from 1953

The paper is, of course right. The old mill building and house was and still is a scenic gem.

This is the paper’s caption.

 

The caption tells us who lived there and that the stream carried trout

Aha! Maybe our fishing man was hoping to entice a trout to take his bait.

We do not know which actual newspaper this was in, but we do know some of the incorporated papers

 

Incorporated newspapers

It’s a lovely picture and it reminds us of times when newspapers felt able to do little features like this.

And here is a more recent photo of the mill taken in 2011.

A 2011 view of the mill from the rear

Thomas Moody

Thomas Moody was born around 1844 in Easterton. In 1851, seven-year-old Thomas lived with parents Charles and Jane and two younger siblings in Easterton. Charles earned his living as a gardener.

In 1861 the family lived at Pond Farm, one of the hill farms on Salisbury Plain. We assume it was a cottage and not the farmhouse, for Charles was an agricultural labourer. Thomas, by now 17, was a miller.

Thomas married Ann Waldron in 1867 in the Shepton Mallet area of Somerset. It is no surprise that we find Thomas and Ann (no children) at Batcombe in Somerset for the 1871 and 1881 censuses. Thomas was continuing as a miller.

In 1891 the couple lived at ‘Windmill’ on The Sands in Market Lavington with Thomas as a miller. There are many people at Market Lavington who would dearly like to know just where the windmill was, and if anyone might have a photo of it.

In 1901 Thomas and Ann were still at ‘Windmill’, Market Lavington but Thomas had retired as a miller and was now a fruit grower working on his own account.

The couple were still together at ‘Windmill’ in 1911.

Ann died in 1919. She was 83.

We know that Thomas was an active member of the Market Lavington Prize Band. He had also helped Isaac Pitman with his shorthand method and had taught typing and shorthand to boys at Dauntsey’s School.

In 1935, as Market Lavington’s oldest inhabitant, he lit the bonfire to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

94 year old Thomas Moody - Miller of Easterton and Market Lavington as seen in 1938

This photo of Thomas shows him in January 1938 when he was aged 94.

Thomas died in 1939. He was buried on 8^th May. His address was given as 39 Victoria Road, Devizes and he was 95.

Russell Mill

Numerous streams rise from the chalk hills of Salisbury Plain in the Lavington Area. There’s the Northbrook, the stream from Broadwell and the West Lavington Stream. The three all meet up around Market Lavington Manor and then flow on to Russell Mill. Russell Mill was once a part of Market Lavington parish but was transferred to West Lavington in the 1880s. Its only road access is from the Littleton Panell area of West Lavington.

Russell Mill used the power of the water in the combined streams to operate the grinding mechanism, which converted wheat into flour. To ensure plenty of power, a dam was constructed so that a lake full of water was always available to drive the machinery.

Our photo shows the lake and mill in about 1912.

Russell Mill in about 1912 - a photo at Market Lavington Museum

Russell Mill was the home and workplace of Amram Saunders in the early nineteenth century. He was a big mover of events in the parish and beyond. His exploits and those of his children could fill a book – actually, more than one book for at least two of his children wrote detailed accounts of their lives and ways of thinking and a third became a newspaper magnate. The Saunders family are sure to crop up sometime in this blog.

There are numerous watermills in the Lavington area – Cornbury and Littleton to name but two. At the museum we’d love to know more about the windmill which must have been sited somewhere on the sands, near the present Windmill Lane, Windmill Cottage and Windmill House. If you have any knowledge of this mill then do, please, get in touch.