Mills

The National Trust for Jersey owns 2 watermills, both located in St Peter’s Valley: Le Moulin de Quétivel, which has been fully restored and is open to the public; Le Moulin de Tesson, which will go through a major refurbishment before being tenanted, with the Trust retaining responsibility for the maintenance of the wheel and the grinding mechanism.

Amongst the oldest occupied sites in Jersey are those of the numerous mills, both windmills and watermills. Over the centuries, as many as 47 watermills were recorded in Jersey, though at no one time were they all in operation. The watermills were located on the banks of the twelve main streams, and were in action from the 11th to the 19th century. In 1331, there were twenty-eight watermills, of which the King held ten. Between 1550 and 1650 milling activity was intense, but the heyday of the miller was probably 1800-1860, when imported wheat from the Baltic was ground in Jersey, and the flour exported across the Atlantic. Gradually steam power ousted the old watermills, and although a few were called back into service during the German Occupation and did work of vital importance, they became but a picturesque aspect of the scenery.

About six medieval windmills catered for the areas remote from the streams, and for summer time when the flow of water might be inadequate to turn the watermills (e.g. the 1815 drought).

The main function of these mills was grinding corn, but there were also mills engaged in grinding malt and fulling cloth and, at a later date, making sugar from cane and paper from rags. The method of grinding by water power is most ingenious and very ancient. The stream was dammed to form a storage pond, and from this pond a channel, the leat or mill-stream (le bié) was dug, which fed the mill-wheel through a water-chute, the flow being regulated at various points by sluice gates (l’écluse).

The water, as it fell on the cross members of the wheel, caused it to revolve, and it was geared by an axle to the millstones. Several internal rotation changes enabled a gearing ratio of about 12 to 1, i.e. for a wheel completing 14 revolutions per minutes, the millstone would revolve at 150 rotations per minute. Other machinery was also connected to the gearing mechanism, such as the grain sack hoist (from basement to first floor).

Although close to water, the mills were particularly vulnerable to fire, with dry materials and fast moving stones which could readily generate sparks. This is one of the reasons explaining why so few mills on the island remain intact with their complete milling mechanism. To be able to view a fully functioning mill such as Quétivel is therefore a great educational opportunity for our future generations.