John said that he wanted an early
start so we met up at 8:30 at the mill. He
immediately sprang into action taking masses of
measurements which he jotted down on a large sheet
of paper. The resulting data made as much sense to
me as looking at a page of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
(fig. 1) I asked John about this fact and he
confessed to me that unless he uploaded this data
onto his computer very quickly they did not make
much sense to him either!
To measure the diameter of shafts and
other circular features he used a massive set of
home made wooden callipers. (fig. 2). John is a fast
worker, and by mid afternoon he had collected
adequate data for his requirements which seemed to
consist of one page of hieroglyphics for each floor
of the mill.
Deciphering the data from his
worksheets seemed to take much longer than scribing
it down. The process took several weeks, but was
well worth the wait. Now there is a collection
of accurately scaled three-dimensional drawings of
Hockley’s mill machinery; typical examples are shown
at pictures 3 and 4. I feel that John’s images
really bring the mill to life - well done John!
Very soon it will be possible to see
all of these drawings by accessing a link to the HMG
website. John has said that his next HMG project
will be to make drawings for Headley Mill. However,
an initial hurdle to overcome was to obtain the
means to open the mill door as the key could not be
found! This problem has been solved – but that’s
scope for more news in your next Newsletter!
What a fascinating job for a chaperone and what
superb quality images Mr. Brandrick has
produced.-Ed.
