Antique granite apple mill

Antique granite apple mill: This Truly Reclaimed antique granite apple mill is in good condition, worn by time and use, ready for re-use in a museum or historic property, or actually for traditional cider making. Look at the old print showing cider-making in a large Normandy barn. The same methods were used in England, the Channel Islands, and surely the regions of North America where new immigrants settled and practiced the same activities as in their homeland. A horse pulled the heavy granite mill wheel round and around pulping the apples which were then transferred to the adjacent press for squeezing out the apple juice. The apple juice was then transferred to barrels to ferment. The cider was then either bottled, or jugs would be filled via a tap fitted low down in the end of the barrel.

This apple crusher is from North West France. Traditional cider making continues here and all BCA’s staff are more than familiar with it. Nowadays professional cider-makers use more mechanized methods which mean that these extra-ordinary granite circles are largely redundant. This cider mill has 4 main segments plus the mill wheel.

Nowadays they are often used as monumental features in a courtyard, driveway or garden, providing a spectacular centre-piece. They can also be used as planters or pools, or even on an imaginative landscape project to channel a stream in a rill in the form of a serpent (Slytherin House ought to have had one at Hogwarts …. ). The cross sectional area of the channel will allow a significant volume of water to flow through it in fact. See the photos where we set up a series of segments to demonstrate our idea of how to create a rill.

At the moment we have two other apple mills in stock, thereby providing lots of scope for a major landscape project :

• Ref. 2023213 Antique granite apple crushing mill
• Ref. 2023215 Truly Reclaimed apple pulping mill

Dimensions approx:

• Diameter : exterior 380cm (12 foot 6 inches)
• Diameter : interior 250cm (8 foot 3 inches)
• Height : 47cm (19 inches)
• Channel exterior width : 64cm (25 inches)
• Channel interior width : 44cm (17 inches)
• Wheel diameter : 132cm (52 inches)
• Wheel pivot square hole : 24cm x 24cm (9.5 x 9.5 inches)

This apple crusher is set up ready to view with two others at our storage and display depot at Méry Corbon, between Caen and Lisieux in Normandie.