A horse mill consisted of two adjacent buildings: the horse-capstan (German: Göpel) building and the mill house proper. The first one was a large round building with a cone-shaped roof of cane or straw. Inside this building there was the horse capstan, a horizontal cross-shaped yoke attached to a very strong vertical axel. The horses were harnessed to the arms of cross-shaped yoke; by moving round and round in a circle, they turned the vertical axel, the motion of which was transmitted via a horizontal intermediate axel and two angular gear sets to the milling mechanism in the second building. The axels and gears were made of wood, and the whole complicated mechanism was certainly a masterpiece of the village tradesmen.

November 03- Rossmühle Mill

'Rossmühle Mill' (Stefan Jäger Collection)

Dominik Simone: The Horse Mill of Alexanderhausen
From the book by Walther Konschitzky:
Dem Alter die Ehr; Kriterion Verlag Bukarest 1982
[interview conducted in 1970] [Nick Tullius]