The Present Building
Although there has been a mill on this site for most of Houghton's history, the original mill site (certainly in the time of the Domesday book) was approximately 0.4 miles along the river towards Huntingdon. The original mill pond is still there but now appears to be a natural backwater.
The present building was probably built in the 17th century, and was extended in the 19th century. In the 1930s, the mill was decommissioned. Local residents bought the building and it was given to the National Trust. After the war, the mill was in use as a youth hostel, and was one of the few YHA establishments where smoking was forbidden because of fire hazard.
In 1999, the National Trust put in new millstones. Flour is still being milled, and the building is a tourist centre, with a camping site nearby.
Read more about this topic: Houghton Mill
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or building:
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“Our civilization is characterized by the word “progress.” Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only as a means to this end, not as an end in itself. For me on the contrary clarity, perspicuity are valuable in themselves.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)