It seems probable that these mediæval hand-mills were of large size, and with a comparatively flat upper stone, like the modern Irish form, which is sometimes 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. One, 3 feet in diameter, found near Hollingbourne,[1045] Kent, was probably of no great antiquity. |259| The same may be said of a six-sided quern, with an iron pivot, found in Edinburgh.[1046] A quern, found at West Coker,[1047] Somerset, with a fleur-de-lis over the passage by which the meal escaped, has been assigned to the thirteenth century. The lower stone of a quern accompanied an apparently Saxon interment at Winster,[1048] Derbyshire. It was of the beehive[1049] shape, and made of millstone grit. Similar querns, with iron pins, have been found at Breedon,[1050] Leicestershire, as well as others with the upper stone more conical. One of this class was also found near Rugby.[1051] They frequently accompany Roman[1052] remains, but these are generally of smaller size, and of a more hemispherical form, the favourite material being the Lower Tertiary conglomerate, or Hertfordshire pudding-stone. Those of Andernach lava, from the Rhine, are usually flat. A complete quern was found at Ehenside Tarn,[1053] Cumberland. The upper half of another was in a post-Roman circular dwelling, near Birtley,[1054] Northumberland. Querns of various forms are of frequent occurrence in Wales, especially in Anglesea. An upper stone from Lampeter,[1055] Cardiganshire, has a semicircular projection at the margin round the hole for the handle. In some districts[1056] they have been in use until quite recent times.[1057] In Scotland, querns are of frequent occurrence in the ancient brochs and hill forts. In one of the former, at Kettleburn,[1058] Caithness, a stone in preparation for a quern was found; in another, in Aberdeenshire, an upper stone, 18 inches in diameter, was discovered. Another stone of the same size, surrounded by four border stones to prevent the scattering of the grain in grinding, was discovered in a subterranean chamber in a hill fort at Dunsinane,[1059] Perth. A curious pot-quern, the lower stone decorated with a carved human face, was found in East Lothian, and is engraved by Wilson.[1060] Some interesting notices of Scottish querns have been given by Sir Arthur Mitchell.[1061] The upper stone, ornamented with raised lines, shown in Fig. 180, from a cut kindly lent me by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, was found in trenching a moss in the parish of Balmaclellan, New Galloway, with some curious bronze objects of “late-Celtic” workmanship.[1062] An upper stone (18 inches), ornamented in a nearly similar way, was found near Stranraer,[1063] Wigtownshire, and another, with a tribrach instead of a cross, at Roy Bridge,[1064] Inverness-shire. |260|