Fromehall mill, in a bit of a state

It is 'Derelict Thursday', and I was up early and on the prowl.  Helena had asked me to give her a lift to work at 8-05am as she needed to take some equipment for her to use with the children this morning.  So after dropping her off I was at a loose end.

After dropping her off, I did mull over whether to return home to bed or a bath, but eventually decided to go back to the scene of last Thursday's 'Derelict Thursday' challenge, Fromehall mill.  Previously I didn't have time to find the really damaged part of the mill building and had ended up 
showing a bit of a junkyard that has arisen at the back of the mill complex.

Today with the sun shining I took time to wander around the back of the 
mill to find the footpath that leads across the River Frome and the various leets that were built to divert water for the mill wheel.  Nowadays these waterways are all redundant, and have been so for nearly a hundred years,  although still fast flowing, but the buildings have mostly been adapted for other purposes.  Some are now offices, others  are media studios and there is even an online antiquarian bookseller's repository.

But the real problem is the oldest part of the mill directly above the actual site of the water wheel, where water still flows swiftly underneath the stone building. The story apparently is that the current owner of this part of the mill, who bought it about forty years ago, sold half of it to raise some money but then has left the bit he owns completely empty and untended.  The rest of the building has been cared for and parts of it are in fully restored condition.

The Stroud Preservation Trust, of which I am a trustee, are trying to do what we can to make the local District Council's conservation officers aware of the issues and to get them to enforce the necessary repairs, but it is a big struggle. The area on the right of the photo, where the ivy is climbing up the stone walls, is the empty and suffering section of the building, which you can hopefully see.  But it is the far side of the building, upstream where the mill pond is, where the really bad problems are. The stone of the three storey walls is collapsing and serious damp has penetrated very badly.  The various stone framed windows are slipping so much that the windows' glass has all broken and they are mostly all boarded up to try to keep the elements out.  It is very sad.  I did try to show it in my other photos but the shade of the adjacent trees and the inability to get a wide view made it difficult to show.  So I am showing this view which at fist glance doesn't seem too bad, but that is an illusion.

The river flows out of a culvert just to the left of this picture and the pathway which runs in front of the corrugated iron fence.  My picture  last week showed a tall chimney, which is part of another more recent extension seen just to the left of this picture.  The taller building at the back is in fine condition and shows what this building should look like.  The plants in the gutter wouldn't take much to remove and are a big part of the problem caused by rainwater flowing down the walls.  

I know someone who rents an office in the good part of the building and both he and the other tenants are very concerned, but no-one is sure what will happen to the rest of this rather fine example of a Cotswold mill.