TL4069 : Cattell's Mill, Willingham, ground floor
taken 10 years ago, near to Willingham, Cambridgeshire, England

This slightly blurred view is in the brick-built ground floor looking up to the underside of the stones. Two tentering governors can be seen. The underside of one set of stones is seen and the white smooth appearance is typical of a set of French burr stones. The stones are overdrift with a great spur wheel one floor up.
In a mill context, tentering is changing the distance (gap) between the runner stone and the bed stone. Decreasing the distance results in a finer grain. As the stones go faster there is a natural tendency for the runner to rise and the tentering mechanism can be adjusted to counter this. In many windmills this is done by a governor that automatically compensates for the tendency of the runner to rise. In watermills it is done by hand with mechanisms of varying elegance. In this case, the second order lever at the bottom raises or lowers the footstep bearing that the spindle carrying the stone nut is supported by. The adjustment is by a vertical lead screw on the other side of the frame and in easy reach of the miller.
