YENTA breathlessly chasing mills

By Bev Young in Opinion Pieces, Other Miscellaneous Topics 0 Comment

Passionata, my enthralment with mills.   I was terribly disappointed last year when I was unable to join the Border Historical Society, in East London as an invited speaker, on the subject of my passion, ‘mills’. 

‘Raised’ in my formative years, in the NE Transvaal, by my beloved grandfather, {and orphan, escapee from Estonia 1917} he indulged my interest, as a true Rabbi  by searching for mills while was away at boarding school. On my return, there would be an adventure to a farm in the district, to visit, that had a mill.

Main picture: Bradshaw’s Mill

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Mill Wheels Grinding: The Orphans

By Bev Young in Port Elizabeth of Yore 0 Comment

{aka Yenta searching for mills- like any good Jewish Donna Quixote would do} 

As any writer/researcher or mill-chaser will allow, there are times when one is stumped. You sit with a collection of faded sepia photographs, of mills, and try as you may, they simply have no story, or were ignored in the course of history, and their records are lost.

All you get when you search from rumours, “I’m sure there was a mill here long ago” – not much help hey?    

Main picture: Mill of Julian Francis Langholm

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Mill Wheels Grinding – The Crumpled Mill, Mansfield

By Bev Young in Port Elizabeth of Yore 3 Comments

{aka Yenta searching for mills- like any good Jewish Donna Quixote would do}

[Of the 384 mills built in the Eastern Cape, a collective of grist, big wooden wheel- wind, paddles, and horse mills,  wooden wheel on top of the mill, only 90 have been identified to date. Of the 1000 mills built in South Africa, all genres, approximately only a further 20 have been recognized.]

This settler mill, has a very sad tale of great expectations, mayhap no business plan in place, and ended up as a crumbling, neglected, ruin of a mill. {Circa 1840}, Mansfield, the land, itself, is a vast old ‘settler, landmarked farm’, holding copious amounts of fresh water from the strong stream, to the left of the photograph; {the water provided is so endless, that it supplies the village of Port Alfred with fresh water} circa 2018.  Perfect for this large ‘grist-mill’  {the one with the large wooden wheel} .

Main picture: Mansfield Mill in 1987

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Mill Wheels Grinding

By Bev Young in Other Miscellaneous Topics 0 Comment

 {aka Yenta searching for mills} like any good Jewish Donna Quixote would do.

What began as a mild interest, seeing that I live near historical mills, has become an abiding passion. One of amazement and learning, to a degree that has me searching via the internet, physically looking for old mills, and listening to many, many stories, from farmers or ‘mill families’.

Main picture: Horse Mill

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