the jolly miller

A beautiful sunny Spring day in Sussex today, though with a cold wind blowing. We visited Bateman's, the former home of Rudyard Kipling, a beautiful Jacobean house (see extra). When he won the Nobel prize in 1907, he used the £7,000 prize money to make a boating pond for his children, which you can see in the photo.

There is a flour mill at Bateman's, dating from 1795,  which the National Trust are planning to restore when they have raised sufficient funds. I love mills, flour and making bread so will have to go back. This poem was engraved on one of the mill's upstairs windows.

I can't find the origin of the term "Jolly Miller" (a common pub name) unless it is from the song, the Miller of Dee. Ideas, anyone?