Hello everyone, I hope you’re well and have been enjoying the lovely weather we’ve been having recently! I’ve realised that so far I haven’t spent all that much time talking about the watermills in the Rex Wailes collection, so thought that in this post I’d try to address that. Looking through the files we have at the Archive of, particularly, watermill pictures, what’s immediately visible is that watermills’ surroundings are almost exclusively beautiful!
After having become accustomed to seeing so many windmill pictures, usually at a farm, on the side of a simple road, or on an expanse of land, the pictures of the watermills are quite different. The above photograph of Kytsoja Mill in Heavavesi, Savo, for example, is perfect in illustrating this.
While there is far less information on watermills than windmills in Finland (perhaps even a wider generalisation can be made?), a lecture given at the Newcomen Society meeting in March 1969 is dedicated solely to them, indicating that they too were an important feature in Rex and Auvo Hirsjärvi’s travels around Finland. The majority of the watermills in the collection here can be found in the south west, among the spruce, fir, and silver birch forests. It is because of all these forests that most of the mills are made with a timber frame, boarded on the outside, and with a shingled roof. There is not much iron used at all, even in the machinery. While this means that the mills require more maintenance to remain in working order, it also makes parts easier to replace, and makes reconstruction simpler. Often mills would be moved to a new site after they had ceased to be used for their traditional purpose – typically one of the many open air museums.
One of the other most prominent things in the appearance of some of the mills (that it is regrettably difficult to see in a black and white photograph!) is the paintwork. Falun red is a dye from Falun, Sweden, where there used to be a famous copper mine. To the south of Falun is another town, Kopparberg, meaning ‘Copper Mountain’. This, again, was named after the mines and also gives us an idea of the colour of the paint – coincidentally, is the same place that also produces the popular brand of cider!
The mill stones at Tammela have been put to great use following their removal from duty before 1962. As you can see in the above photograph there is a café overlooking what appears to be a lake, with unusual but ingenious tables.
Another favourite image of mine is below and shows the mill stones piled high in a memorial at Kotkastoniemi Sugar Factory, Säkylä, Varsinais Suomi. While the figures remain unidentified on the reverse of the photograph, it appears to be Rex on the left of the three men. While these two photos don’t show the mills in action, it is interesting to see what the life of the various components of a mill is like once they have served their primary function. It also shows how many there used to be in use, and the scale on which the industry once operated:
There also appears to be a bit of a bird theme in the watermill world: while the mill at Kümajoki, Velaatta is referred to as “The Crane of Death”, Rex has written a note to go with the images: “= STORK”. He has continued that “while storks don’t nest in Finland, it is possible that old-time people thought it to be an uncommon sort of crane that forebodes death!”. See if you can see why in the corresponding images that will soon be on the catalogue.
Finally, to fit with the theme there is also a fantastic watermill-esque windmill (in design) in Porvoo, Uusimaa – with a woodpeckers’ nest! While unfortunately there are no pictures of the nest, or indeed the hole through which the bird entered the mill, it has been recalled that it was located at the opposite end of the windshaft to where the sails would have been attached, just above the tail journal. Rex notes that during the complete reconstruction of the mill “the impression gained was that the mill had been built extremely well by a millwright who was not necessarily following the traditional design, and had probably designed the drive for the stones and their mounting as he would have done for a watermill”.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this slight ‘whistle-stop tour’ of what kind of information on Finnish watermills we have in the collection; do take a look at what we have in the Finnish Mills Material collection, as more is being added each day.