Diesel Engine

Our diesel engine is a twin-cylinder Ruston Hornsby diesel engine purchased by the miller, Ben Davis, from the Royal Show at Shrewsbury in 1949. It was the show model of the year, and was delivered to the mill from the company's Boulton Works in Lincoln in September 1949.

The engine is located on the ground floor in a separate room, where the northern waterwheel once existed. A large iron cylindrical tank in the corner of the room is filled with water which is used to cool the engine.

The engine is linked to a series of belts and intermediate shafts in order to drive some of the machinery in the mill. The belts from the diesel engine and to the overhead shaft are twisted to give a greater contact area on the pulley wheels to reduce slippage.

In the photo below, the belt on the left is driven directly by the diesel engine; the belt on the right then drives the overhead horizontal shaft. This shaft then drives the combined milling machine on the first floor, the sack hoist, and a grinding wheel on the first floor, which was used for sharpening the mill-bills used for dressing millstones.

Alternatively, by changing the belting, the diesel engine can be used to drive the saw bench or the very noisy hammer mill that the last miller used for his part-time work of grist or animal feed milling. You can see the hammer mill in the photo below.

And here's a really bad photo of the saw bench. We'll have this presented properly soon!

For many years during Open Days the air around the diesel engine would become polluted by the foul-smelling exhaust fumes of the engine. The use of diesel as the fuel has now been replaced by HVO - Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil. Although not yet readily available, we have managed to obtain a supply sufficient for our needs. It has not been necessary to make any changes to the engine and the obnoxious diesel fumes have been completely eliminated.