Relocated to Amberley in the 1980s, this building was used as a gin mill.

This twelve-sided building once housed a horse-powered gin. Later it became a a blacksmith's shop, at the old Tortington Ironworks near Arundel, West Sussex. Now relocated to Amberley Working Museum, it is used by the resident Foundryman.
Real Horse Power!


The gin (short for ‘engine’) was probably used to crush oil from the seeds of flax (known as linseed).

In such buildings a horse would be tethered to a pole attached to a central vertical shaft. As the horse walked round in a circle, the shaft and the gears attached to it turned one or two stones that crushed the linseed.

Details are known about the building from 1805 onwards although it is likely to be older than this. For many years it was used by the local agricultural engineering firm of James Penfold as a forge. The building was located at Penfold’s Tortington Ironworks, just outside Arundel.

When the Tortington site was redeveloped in the late 1980s by Wimpey, the gin building, which is a listed building, was saved and donated to the Museum.