A water mill that has worked continuously since 1907, and the family who still take flour from it every week.
Twenty minutes' walk below the estate, on a channel taken off the stream, there is a stone mill with a wooden wheel lying flat in the water. It has ground wheat and maize for four generations of one family.
How it works
No gears, no belt. The water turns a horizontal wheel; the wheel turns the upper stone directly. The flour comes out cool, which is the whole argument for it — a roller mill heats the grain and takes the smell with it.
Why it survived
Because the family never stopped using it, and because nobody in the village agreed the difference in taste was imaginary.
We go down on Tuesdays and Fridays after breakfast. It is steep on the way back and worth it for the smell of the mill room alone.
The mill, the weavers, the temple carpenter — walks into the working village rather than a staged cultural evening.
Leads the walks, the forest sittings and the bird counts.
1 comment
We brought back a kilo of the maize flour. It genuinely does taste different.