The Warning of the Watermill
Vitruvius Molinus made me,
With wheel and stone and leat,
Whilst cohorts marched against the
tribes
Westward on Watling Street.
Four generations tended me,
Till the Legions’ recall to Rome,
But a Molinus stayed to work my mill
-
He knew no other home.
When invading hordes had settled
down
And village life was born,
The sokeman and villains needed me
To grind the Saxon corn.
I was listed in William’s Domesday
Book,
As were five thousand more;
I tendered my tax in “sticks of
eels”,
According to Norman law.
For centuries have I worked away,
Whatever line was in power;
I garnered the local harvest
And ground it into flour.
Men said then that the power of
steam
Was a more efficient way;
So my weir, my leat, my wheel
collapsed,
And I began to decay.
Then a “property developer” rebuilt
me,
With deal and glass and paint,
He turned me into a restaurant,
Described as “rather quaint”.
He took out all my machinery,
Hung my artifacts on the wall,
Displayed my sluice behind plate
glass
As a “picturesque waterfall”.
Perhaps when you’ve used all your
North Sea oil
And your fossil fuel is done,
You’ll remember I was once a
watermill
And rivers will always run.
By
Richard Holding.
