A rare Charles II rose engine-turned lignum vitae coffee grinding mill, c.1660, with numerous screw-threaded parts, the lobed dome cover with acorn finial above a cube body with rose-turned roundels to four sides enclosing the grinding mechanism, with 18th century wrought iron handle, on a hollow stem and engined-turned circular foot from which the grindings fall, 13.25in.

In William H. Ukers book `All About Coffee, The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, New York ,1922, writes that in 1650... `in some accounts Jacob or Jacobs by name, in others Jobson opened "at the Angel in the parish of St. Peter in the East", Oxford, the earliest English coffee house and "there it [coffee] was by some who delighted in noveltie, drank". Chocolate was also sold at this first coffee house. He also writes that `In 1665, Nicholas Book, "living at the Sign of the Frying Pan in St. Tulies street," London, advertised that he was "the only known man for making of mills for grinding of coffee powder, which mills are sold by him from forty to forty-five shillings the mill."

Edward H. Pinto in his classic reference work `Treen or Small Woodware Throughout the Ages`, B.T. Batsford Ltd.,1949, illustrates an incomplete rose engine-turned lignum vitae grinder in Plate 39.