MILLS AND MILLSTONES. 5U 



already observed, maintained the ancient farming by bailiff, 

 and the practice of supplying its tenants with capital and 

 materials, after the custom had been abandoned by other 

 societies. 



A third kind, and the cheapest, was that obtained from the 

 Trillek quarries in Monmouthshire. On the spot, these stones, 

 which I have found only in the earlier period, cost no more 

 than is. ; but when carried to Strugull or Bristol, or Cardiff or 

 Cowbridge, the price was considerably enhanced by the charge 

 of conveyance. 



A fourth is found in the north of England, as at Barkby and 

 Kibworth in Leicestershire, and Finchale in Durham unless, in- 

 deed, we are to conclude that Buckingham or Winslow stones 

 were carried into Rutland and Leicester. It may be that these 

 millstones were those of Bastlow in Derbyshire, quarries of which 

 have been worked for centuries. Perhaps too we should need to 

 discover some fifth class which would contain the stones used 

 in Wilts, as at Heghtredebury, and another for those of Wol- 

 richston. It seems clear from the price that they could not be 

 >reign articles. 



I have, in attempting to give information as to the price of 

 the best stones, taken the highest entries only. But the reader 

 will find that the evidence is copious for the thirteenth and the 

 first twenty years of the fourteenth century. Nor do I hesitate, 

 although the entries for the later years are so scanty, in con- 

 cluding that the average price of the best stones was, on the 

 whole, that which is designated, or that the rise in the price 

 after the Great Plague was that which the contrasted figures 

 suggest, viz,, seventy-five per cent. 



A few stones, expressly said to be intended for particular 

 purposes, as for crushing apples, grinding mustard, or for a 

 handmill, will be commented on in the next chapter. 



LOCKS AND KEYS. Such information as my accounts have 

 supplied me with as to the value of these articles is collected 

 into a table in the second volume, pp. 518-530. The state- 

 ments have a greater interest from the record of the various 



