TL4138 : Great Chishill Mill - tentering mechanism
taken 1 year ago, near to Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire, England

This is part of the tentering mechanism under the tail stones. The governor is out of sight to the left but its drive belt and steelyard (8) are visible. The steelyard picks up one end of the tentering beam (9) and there is also manual adjustment by a wheel (10). The diagonal piece of wood is the meal spout from the stones above.
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.
