Cseri Miklós - Horváth Anita - Szabó Zsuzsanna (szerk.): Discover Rural Hungary!, Guide (Szentendre, Hungarian Open Air Museum, 2007)

X Kisalföld - X-9 Treadmill from Mosonszentmiklós

X-9 Treadmill from Mosonszentmiklós H Treadmills were already known in Hungary by the 16th century. Mosonszentmiklós lies on the fringes of Tóköz, by the unpredictable stream of Rábca, a long way from the water mills along the rivers Danube and Rába. That is why the village had a horse-driven treadmill built as recently as 1805. The inscription of its shaft reads "Made by András Szabó and Mihál Tót 1805". The mill operated at its original site until 1958, its last owner being Imre Haber tiller The mill consists of two parts; one is the tread shed with reed walls and roof housing the driving structure, the other is the brick-walled mill house. The tilted shaft is connected to the tilted tread-wheel, the disc of planks thickly mired, fit for the animals to walk on it. The animals driving the mill (buffaloes, horses, oxen) were prodded to step on the wheel. When the brake was released the wheel began to roll downwards under their feet. In fact the structure was moved by their even pacing. The rotary motion was transmitted from the tilted shaft through the horizontal one to the grinding stones. The lower stone lying on the milling table was fixed with a wrought iron axle swivelling the upper one. Above, the hopper can be found with the shaking gear The mill's efficiency was relatively limited because of the slow motion, with the result that the flour remained coarse. The mechanism reminds us of the grinders driven by man-power in prisons. The construction is completely original and the only survivor of its type.