Louhisaari Manor Mill, Askainen

A wind-powered corn mill in Finland.

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This is a large building of three storeys, 23 ft. 6 in. square, now without sails or tailpole. It probably stood something just under 50 ft. high to the top of the gear box to which there is no access. It was built in about 1900 and went out of use about 1947. The roof is flat and wood was fed in from the roof to a large rasping machine with a vertical circular rasp. We may take it that this wood was the waste from the single-making machine which has disappeared. It was housed in a shed outside the mill and could be driven either by a portable steam engine or by wind. The pearling machine is in one corner of the first floor, and roughly in the centre of the first floor are two pairs of composition stones on triangular wood plinths. They are 3 ft. 6 in. diameter, and were also fed from above with grain. They have hoppers and casings, but only a quite primitive feed from the hoppers to the stones. All the woodwork of the stones and the machine was painted ultramarine.

The drive from above was by a wooden upright shaft 17 in. diameter built up of eight pieces and banded with iron. It drove down to a clasp-arm great spur-wheel that drove two wooden stone-nuts for the two pairs of stones. These have wooden bridgetrees, and adjustment of the stones was by direct screw and nut. We could not find any visible slip cogs, nor was there any other apparent method of disengaging the stone nuts. The spouts for the wood flour have hooks on the end for sacks.

On the bottom face of the great spur wheel is a down-turned wood bevel with cogs which themselves form the dove-tailed wedges of the spur wheel cogs. This drove a wooden bevel pinion on a wood shaft on the other end of which was a wood pullet which drove the pearling machine from below by belt. The spider sail is said to have been 14 metres (46 ft.) across.

Louhisaari Manor is the birthplace of Baron Gustaf Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland, who commanded the Finnish Forces against the Russians in both World Wars, The house is now a National Monument and is open to the public.

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References

• TIMS Mills GPS Database Mill ID 3235
• Wailes, Rex, & Auvo Hirsjärvi, "Finnish Mills Part III: Hollow Post Mills", (Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 44, 1971-1972, pp.99-118)

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