Water Mill in Farmstead World — building in the game, and what it is on a real farm.
A water mill uses a wheel turned by a stream or river to drive machinery, most often a pair of grinding stones.
The wheel and the millrace are shaped to make the most of the current, and mills have run on the same site for centuries because the water is the engine.
Farm facts about water mill
Some Iranian watermills were built underground, their wheels turned by the slow, steady flow of water moving through qanat tunnels. (en.wikipedia.org)
Around 20 BCE, the Greek poet Antipater told the girls who ground grain that they could finally sleep in—the water wheel had taken over their work. (en.wikipedia.org)
At Barbegal in Roman Gaul, 16 water wheels milled an estimated 4.5 tons of flour a day—enough to feed the 12,500 residents of the town of Arles. (en.wikipedia.org)
The Domesday Book counted 5,624 watermills in England in 1086—about one mill for every 300 people in the country. (en.wikipedia.org)
In 537 CE, when besiegers cut off Rome's water supply, General Belisarius moored floating ship mills in the river so the city could keep grinding grain. (en.wikipedia.org)
Tenth-century Baghdad ground grain aboard ship mills—giant floating water wheels built of teak and iron that could produce 10 tons of flour a day. (en.wikipedia.org)