• 1: Home
• 2: the mill house
  • 2.1: inside the mill
  • 2.2: history
  • 2.3: the estate
  • 2.4: the year at carletti
• 3: the locality
  • 3.1: nearby
• 4: things to do
  • 4.1: hill walking
  • 4.2: rural activities
  • 4.3: winter breaks
• 5: visiting and booking
  • 5.1: seasonal rates
  • 5.2: contact us
  • 5.3: planning your journey

history

a part of the mule track to the mill -- before we constructed the road

a little about the house and its history

the marble plaque by the front door to the main mill house declares it to be number one of località Carletti in the district of Barga

The new part of the house was added in 1894. We do not know the date of the earlier part, but it is probably 50 to 200 years older.

The construction is impressive: the walls of Mulino Carletti are built of well-crafted local stone and the timbers are chestnut wood.

To understand how such a substantial and once prosperous house came to be built in the middle of a forest far from the nearest road, we have to appreciate some aspects of life in the region in days gone by. Customers came to the mill with their grain on the back of a mule – or on their own back. The “main roads” of the time were mule tracks. I know at least one resident of Barga who remembers coming to Mulino Carletti as a young man with a sack of grain on his shoulders.

The mill (centre foreground) seen from approx. 500m away. The Appennine alps in the background

The location of mills was, of course, determined by geography. Mulino Carletti is located on a stratum of harder rock that resisted the erosion by the Torrente Segaccia and created the change of level that provides the power for the mill. In the winter photo on the right, you can see the ridge of hard rock crossing the forest.
The Torrente runs down the valley as a series of small falls, but this hard rock provided a more rapid drop, as well as a good foundation for the house. The water is channeled into a tank from where large pipes run under the house to jets driving the mill wheels, which were horizontal. The jets have a pressure of over 5m of water. A third pipe runs to a small building below the mill where it drove a lathe and the electric generator, added in the late 1940s. The turbine turning the generator has over 7m of pressure.