The Mill Traditional Cache
Professor Xavier: As the owner has not responded to my previous log requesting that they check this cache I am archiving it. Please note that as this cache has now been archived by a reviewer or HQ staff it will NOT be unarchived.
If you wish to email me please send your email via my profile (click on my name) and quote the cache name and number.
Regards
Ed
Professor Xavier - Volunteer UK Reviewer
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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This is a micro (35mm film canister) which can be done as a cache and dash but do take the time to look at the mill.
Some history for you:
Chalgrove Mill was last used to produce flour on National Mills Day, 2002. Its ultimate use commercially was in the production of grist, in the 1950's by which time it was electrically powered. The animal food was sold mainly to local smallholders and cottagers to feed their pigs and chickens, but as these enterprises diminished the mill gradually fell into disuse, and so it remained, largely untouched and intact for around fifty years. A new owner, in October 1996, renovated the attached house and restored the mill to working order before selling the property in 1999.
The building that houses the mill was re-built in 1871 when the under or mid shot wheel was replaced by an overshot one. During the restoration works of the late 1990s, the wheel was turned to run backwards as a high breast shot, thus not needing the high water level that had in the past caused flooding in the village.
Millers of the more recent past had the full water rights. Traditionally, at lunch time on Saturday, the miller's assistant would open the top gate, on the Berrick Road near the junction with Monument Road, to allow the water to run down the front brooks, through the High Street, so that villagers could do their washing and after Chapel on Sunday, the miller would close the gate so that the water flowed through Marl Brook, or Back Brook as it was locally known, to fill the lagoons that had been constructed so that sufficient water would be available for a full six and a half days' milling.
When, in the 1920s, a long drought reduced the Marl Brook, now designated Chalgrove Brook, to a trickle a steam engine was used to keep the mill working, and when this had to be returned for its normal usage a tractor, lent by the same farmer, was used in conjunction with a portable engine.
Evidence of both Romano-British and Saxon mills has been found in Chalgrove, and the Domesday Book records five mills. One of these was probably at Benson as two records testify the grant of a mill at Benson from the Lord of the Manor of Chalgrove to the Abbot of Abingdon, and the Hundred Rolls of 1275 refers to four mills only. Records of the later medieval period refer by name to three mills. Stratfordmill was at the eastern end of the parish, Chyrchemylle was probably not far from the church and the Barentin Manor, and Trylle Mill may have been on or near the site of the present mill. In 1548 Peter Gylmyn, had the tenancy from Magdalen College of two mills, one a water mill and the other a horse mill.
Please replace the cache as found.
FTF goes to metal-bijou
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
I bs vil pbirerq gerr
Treasures
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