1) A mill for extracting the oil from rape, linseed and the like.
Oil was being imported into Hull in barrels in the fifteenth century, certainly from 1453 when it was described simply as oile. More specific references soon followed: 1461 2 parva bar’ cum lynsede oyle
1463 1 bar’ rape oyle, Hull. In Bridlington in 1679, the pier toll for every Barrelle of Oyle was 2d. Mills to crush the oil-giving seeds are in evidence in Hull from the early sixteenth century: 1525 … to my son John … my oile mylne with the garthyng, with all the cisternes of leede, Hull
1527-8 John Harryson for ... his oil milne at a terme ijd, Hull
1550 my messuage commonly callyd the Oylemylne with cesterns and all other implementes, Hull. Hull was later to be a world centre of the seed-crushing industry but by the 1700s oil-mills were more widely distributed. The clothier John Brearley drew a diagram of a windmill in his Memorandum Books saying: This mill grinds logwood chips and rasps and grinds rape seed for oyle, Wakefield.