Truly Reclaimed apple pulping mill

Truly Reclaimed apple pulping mill: This Truly Reclaimed antique granite apple pulping mill is in good condition, well worn over time and with long-term use. It could be installed in a country crafts museum or in a historic property, or it could be put back to use for traditional cider making. This cider mill has 4 main segments plus the mill wheel, and unusually still has the ancient oak pivot arm onto which the granite wheel is fixed.

See the old print showing cider-making in a Normandy barn. One can safely assume that cider-making was done using same age-old methods in England, the Channel Islands, and surely the regions of North America where new immigrants settled. The heavy granite mill wheel was pulled round and round pulping apples which were then transferred to the apple press for squeezing out the juice which was then transferred into barrels for fermenting. 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, where traditional cider making (and Calvados too) continues. BCA’s staff are very familiar with cider and how it is produced having watched their parents’ or grand-parents’ generation cider-making. These days professional cider-makers use mechanized methods which mean that these extra-ordinary granite circles and the huge presses are largely redundant.

Nowadays they are often used as spectacular features in a courtyard, driveway or garden to provide a centre-piece. They can also be used as planters or pools, or more ambitiously on a landscape project to channel a stream into a serpentine rill ( could Slytherin House have had one at Hogwarts ? ). The cross sectional area of each channel segment allows a large volume of water to flow through, particularly if they are arranged on a slope or stepped down. See these photos of a series of segments that we laid out to demonstrate our rill creation idea.

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. 2023214 Antique granite apple mill

Dimensions approx :

• Diameter : exterior 390cm (12 foot 10 inches)
• Diameter : interior 260cm (8 foot 6 inches)
• Height : 50cm (20 inches)
• Channel exterior width : 64.5cm (25.5 inches)
• Channel interior width : 47cm (8.5 inches)
• Wheel diameter : 143cm (56 inches)
• Wheel pivot square hole : 23cm x 23cm (9 x 9 inches)

This apple crusher is set up for viewing with two others at our storage and display depot at Méry Corbon, between Caen and Lisieux in Normandy.