MORE ABOUT FRENCH BURR STONES.

Back in the newsletter of the 3rd September 2025 (If you didn’t receive it or would like to re-read it the article is on the website) I talked about the origin of some of the millstones at the mill. We have three sets of French Burr stones that originated in France. But they would be supplied by millstone merchants in this country usually at one of the major ports. A lot of these merchants when they constructed the millstones put a cast iron plate on the top of the stone with their name on them. Two of our three sets have plates attached.

MAKERS PLATE ON THE MIDDLE SET OF STONES.

Edward Davies and Son operated from 21 Cheapside Liverpool in the 1840s, they appear in an 1858 trade directory.

PLATE ON THE DOWNSTREAM SET OF STONES.

The plate on this set show they were supplied by Davies and Sneade. They start to appear in the directories from 1875. The plate states they were founded in 1817. It is possible that the original merchants were called Cotton and Davies. They appear in a trade directory of 1844.

The above would suggest that the middle set of stones date from between 1844 and 1875. With the second pair dating from after 1875 till the possible closure of the business in the 1930s. Davies and Sneade exhibited in Carlisle at the 1880 Royal Agricultural Show.

There are three of these plates on this set of stones. You will notice there is a square nut in the centre of the plate. These can be slackened and the plate lifted to show a box set into the top of the stone. This can have weights added to it to balance the stone.

The third set of stones unfortunately don’t have any makers plates.

But we do know that during the history of the mill a set of Burr stones was possibly supplied by Joseph Young jun, of Cheapside, Liverpool and also of Manchester. He was advertising millstones in the Carlisle Journal in August 1838. He suggest that references to the quality of his millstones could be obtained from Mr McKnight at Warwick Bridge Corn Mill or J D Carr of Carlisle.

A lot more research is needed into these millstone merchants.