Between the River Cherio and the San Fermo Hills, there used to be numerous mills, all of which have now disappeared…except for one. We are talking about the small Acqua Sparsa Mill, which belonged to the Agazzi family for generations and can still be visited today.
Acqua Sparsa is a particularly lovely area within the municipal district of Grove that is dominated by a large karstic spring, the most important in Val Cavallina. The place was already settled by Roman times, most probably because of its singular environmental beauty.
Acqua Sparsa is also noteworthy for the watermill that distinguishes its tiny inhabited core. It is the only watermill in the Val Cavallina that has been preserved in full working order up to the present day. It is the Acqua Sparsa springs that give it its name: through small channels carved into the rock, the water reaches the wheel, avoiding being “scattered”.
In the final stage of its working life, at the end of the 20th century, it produced ground maize used to make animal feed.
The mill was originally set up by Domenico Agazzi, named “mülinèr”, who had it built around the first half of the 1700’s. In the 1820 it was noted as being a “molino a più rote”, or mill with many wheels. In the Lombard-Venetian land register of around 1840, it is described as a “grain and water mill with house”, owned by Giovanni Battista Agazzi. The Acqua Sparsa factory, which was partially electrified, continued to operate, keeping the water diversion channel and the wheel active.
A building adjacent to the mill used water from the same spring for “fitadura” or the working of “coti” stone. This stone came from the quarrying area of Pos Fossana, where there are caves that were mentioned in medieval times, but which probably date from a much earlier era.
The mill stands in a true oasis of tranquillity, immersed in greenery and out of time, which gives an idea of what life could have been like in a small hill village when the peasant civilisation still dominated our territory.
VISIT INFORMATION:
Today, the building can just be visited by small groups of people by prior arrangement.
