The Hawton Gypsum Mill and Developments in 19th-Century Grinding Technology

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Hawton Gypsum Mill was formerly part of an extensive complex of gypsum extraction and processing plants that extended over a considerable acreage of south-western Newark in Nottinghamshire (Mill and quarry site, GR SK8014 5070). The sites were interlinked by a standard-gauge tramway, worked by steam locomotives, enabling the output of the quarries to be matched to the capacities of the mills.The Hawton Mill was attached to its own quarry, the later of which appears to have been in production since the 1840s. Although the evidence is inconclusive, there may have been a processing mill on the site from the beginning. However, the present mill was probably completed in the second half of the 19th century, possibly after Messrs Cafferata became owners of the site.The brick building that enclosed the milling machinery followed the local vernacular tradition of industrial buildings. The plant contained within the building, although specifi cally intended for gypsum reduction, consisted of an installation characteristic of corn milling. This adoption of corn milling technology to refi ne gypsum is a particularly signifi cant development in the gypsum industry's history, and there were several similar plants in operation locally until the closing decades of the 20th century.In addition to the interest that attaches to the use of such machinery for gypsum processing, the mill machinery embodies two further important features of wider consequence for the study of stone milling technology. It represents a type of milling plant that had become virtually standard throughout the cereal milling trade after about 1830. This was the layshaft mill, which used a horizontal main drive shaft carrying several sets of bevel gearwheels, each driving an individual pair of stones. The arrangement of the stones was thus linear as opposed to the circular confi guration of stones driven by the great wheel and its upright shaft, the pattern commonly adopted in the 18th century.The newer type of mill was built entirely of iron, the product of the engineering works, whereas the older upright shaft mill was a traditional millwright's construction, fabricated on site, largely from timber. The engineer-built, all-iron mill lent itself to modular construction. Increasingly, agricultural and other engineering firms offered such mills as catalogue products available as single stone units or multiples thereof. Hawton was clearly of this form with standard elements bolted together in series to create a twin line each of eight stone sets.The mill with its machinery survived until recently and was surveyed in the year 2000 by Structural Perspectives Ltd, acting as subcontractors to the Archaeology Service of Nottingham County Council. As it stood at the time of the survey, the Hawton Gypsum Mill was reduced to a single block standing isolated at the edge of the recently filled quarry. The building had been heavily vandalized and fire damaged but nevertheless remained substantially intact. The associated ancillary process and other buildings shown on earlier maps and photographs had been recently demolished.