The Mill is a typical example of the large number of decaying industrial architectural pearls from the 19th and 20th centuries rotting away in the Czech Republic. Thankfully, it has been undergoing a slow reconstruction over the past 5 years with a maximum level of respect for its heritage and in harmony with the surrounding village and landscape. The Mill has a long and somewhat difficult to uncover history. Dolní Žďár was Sudeten and called...(more)The Mill is a typical example of the large number of decaying industrial architectural pearls from the 19th and 20th centuries rotting away in the Czech Republic. Thankfully, it has been undergoing a slow reconstruction over the past 5 years with a maximum level of respect for its heritage and in harmony with the surrounding village and landscape. The Mill has a long and somewhat difficult to uncover history. Dolní Žďár was Sudeten and called Niedermuehle (Lower Mill) before World War II. The Mill was the center of commercial if not community activities and contained in its 3 buildings a bakery (complete with glazed brick baking oven), saw, store and warehouse. The mill was nationalized in 1948 and had reached a state of devastation by the time it was sold to private persons in 2002, at which time the town was trying to sell it to help finance the construction of a water system. The present structures were built about a century ago, although there is evidence of a mill in this spot for at least three centuries. The water still turns a wheel - now it's a hydroelectric turbine, which sells its electricity back to the grid.
The idea of this reconstruction is to save the old and blend it in with the new. Great pains are being taken to preserve what can be preserved – including beams, floors, and stairs.
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