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Post mill
The post mill was a common early medieval European windmill design: the whole mill house sat on a vertical shaft that could rotate around a central p…
Timeline
- c. 1190–1200Flanders and England · Northwestern EuropeThe post mill was characterized by a rotatable mill house and a four-sail wind wheel, used for grinding grain in the Low Countries and eastern England around the 1190s, and soon extended to drainage and sawmilling.
- c. 1200–1300Coastal and river valleys of Northwestern Europe · Northwestern EuropeIn the 13th century the number of post mills surged, becoming the core power source of Low Countries drainage systems and rural milling networks, driving down grain-processing costs and enabling land reclamation.
Sources
- Windmills in Medieval Europe — Leslie Alan Clarkson (1965)
- Medieval Technology and Social Change — Lynn White Jr. (1962)