A horse-engine house at Gilston
Introduction
The photograph on this page of A horse-engine house at Gilston by Richard Law as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
A horse-engine house at Gilston
Image: © Richard Law Taken: 29 Jun 2013
The octagonal building, variously known as horse mill, horse-engine or gin gang, would have been connected to a small threshing machine in the adjacent barn, which in turn was powered by a horse walking around in a circle inside the mill. This was necessary where there was no reliable source of water for power, but they were duly superseded by the coming of the steam powered engines. Commonly constructed in the late 18th to early 19th centuries, many have now been demolished, and the mills are relatively uncommon.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
56.246346
Longitude
-2.881997