MILL, a machine for grinding corn and other kinds of grain. There are various kinds of mills, according to the different methods of applying the moving power, as watermills, wind-mills, mills worked by horses, and others. See Mechanics.

The first obvious method of reducing corn into flour for bread would be by the simple expedient of pounding; and for ages this was the only one practised by the various descendants of Adam. The same method continued in use amongst the Romans until after the reign of Vespasian. But the process was very early improved by the application of a grinding power, and the introduction of millstones. This, like most of the common refinements in domestic life, was probably the invention of the antediluvian world; it certainly was practised in some of the earliest ages after the Deluge; and, like most of them, it was equally known in the East and the West. Hence the Gauls and Britons appear to have been familiarly acquainted with the use of hand-mills before the time of their submission to the Romans; the Britons particularly distinguished them, as the Highlanders do at present, by the simple appellations of querns, carnes, or stones. To these the Romans added the very’ useful invention of water-mills. For this discovery the world is indebted to the genius of Italy; and, at the conquest of Lancashire, the machine was not uncommon in the country. This the Romans introduced along with their other refinements. The British appellation of a water-mill suggests this of itself; the melin of the Welsh and Cornish; the mull, meill i and melin of the Armoricans; and the Irish muilean and muilind, being all evidently derived from the Roman mola and molendinum [7:15:77]The subject Britons universally adopted the Roman name, but applied it, as their successors did, only to the Roman mill; and one of these was probably erected at every station or city in the kingdom. There was one at Manchester, which served equally the purposes of the town and the accommodation of the garrison. This water-mill was fixed immediately below the Castlefield and the town, on the channel of the Medlock. There, a little above the ancient ford, the sluice of it was accidentally discovered about half a century ago.

During the first five or six centuries of Rome, there were no public bread-bakers in the imperial city. They were first introduced from the East, at the conclusion of the war with Perseus, about the year 167 before Christ; and, towards the close of the first century, the Roman families were supplied by them every morning with fresh loaves for breakfast. But the same custom, which prevailed originally amongst the Romans and many other nations, continued long afterwards amongst the Mancunians. The providing of bread for every family was left entirely to the attention of the women; and it was baked upon stones, which the Welsh denominate greidiols, and we gredles. It appears, however, from the kiln-burned pottery which has been discovered in the British sepulchres, and from the British appellation of an odyn or oven remaining amongst us at present, that furnaces for baking were generally known amongst the aboriginal Britons. An odyn would, therefore, be erected in the mansion of each British baron, for the use of himself and his retainers; and when he and they removed into the vicinity of a Roman station, the oven would be rebuilt with the mansion. One bakehouse would be constructed, as we have previously shown one mill to have been set up, for the public service of all the Mancunian families. It appears that one oven and one mill were established in the town, and that the inhabitants were immemorially accustomed to bake at the one and grind at the other. Both, therefore, were in all probability constructed at the first introduction of water-mills and ovens into the country. The great similarity of the appointments refers directly to one and the same origin; indeed, the general nature of all such’ institutions points immediately to the first and actual introduction of both. And, as the same establishments prevailed equally in other parts of the north, and pretty certainly obtained over the whole extent of Roman Britain, the same erections were as certainly made at every stationary town in the kingdom.