Applications
- Gristmills, or corn mills, grind grains into flour. These were undoubtedly the most common kind of mill.
- Fulling or walk mills were used for a finishing process on woollen cloth.
- Sawmills cut timber into lumber.
- Bark mills ground bark, from oak or chestnut trees to produce a coarse powder for use in tanneries.
- Spoke mills turned lumber into spokes for carriage wheels.
- Cotton mills were driven by water. The power was used to card the raw cotton, and then to drive the spinning mules and ring frames. Steam engines were initially used to increase the water flow to the wheel, then as the industrial revolution progressed, to directly drive the shafts.
- Bobbin mills made wooden bobbins for the cotton and other textile industries.
- Carpet mills for making carpets and rugs were sometimes water-powered.
- Textile mills for spinning yarn or weaving cloth were sometimes water-powered.
- Powder mills for making gunpowder - black powder or smokeless powder were usually water-powered.
- Blast furnaces, finery forges, and tinplate works were, until the introduction of the steam engine, almost invariably water powered. Furnaces and Forges were sometimes called iron mills.
- Blade mills were used for sharpening newly made blades.
- Slitting mills were used for slitting bars of iron into rods, which were then made into nails.
- Rolling mills shaped metal by passing it between rollers.
- Lead was usually smelted in smeltmills prior to the introduction of the cupola (a reverberatory furnace).
- Paper mills used water not only for motive power, but also required it in large quantities in the manufacturing process.
- Stamp mills for crushing ore, usually from non-ferrous mines
- Needle mills for scouring needles during manufacture were mostly water-powered (such as Forge Mill Needle Museum)
- Oil mills for crushing oil seeds might be wind or water-powered
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