 A short history of the land The Sawmill site is a sleepy hollow nestled almost in it's own world hidden away from the hustle & bustle of every day life, a sunny sanctuary right on the edge of the countryside, directly next to the site, 30' up on higher ground & keeping a watchful guiding eye on us is Holton Saint Peter Post Mill built in 1750 which has been beautifully restored & I believe is at present leased to Suffolk County Council who care & look after it. The windmill is but a reminder of a time when wind power was widespread across the land and by the 15th century there were over 10,000 in use across Britain, particularly in East Anglia, Kent and Sussex. The Post Mill was the earliest type of mill built in this country & an ancient legacy & reminder of how we survived long before fossil fuels were discovered & developed. Across from St Peter's Mill are two beautiful lakes one over 4 acres in size, both situated on the very edge of the countryside with open fields, & nature walks & a stones throw from the small village of Holton next to it's old neighbour the historic market town of Halesworth in Suffolk. The Sawmill site was once used as a wartime flint Quarry, active up until the late 1940's. In 1951 permission was granted for a Factory, Storage & Saw Mill, the power plant of this factory was housed in a 70' x 35' barn clad in tin, crudely but well built in a time when rationing was still around, & a smaller tin barn 26' x 22' which housed the chassis & engine of an old red London Transport bus some very large saws & machinery according to the size of the concrete machine platforms that are clumped around the insides of both of these buildings. There are various other stores & garages that are connected to a 25' x 25' tin barn which was originally the old sawmill's workshop, & also built in the early 1950's. In 1969 the site was purchased by an engineering firm who turned it into workshops for dismantling machinery prior to export & storage of these components, including plant machinery, storage of building materials & the site was also used as a lorry & container park. From 1980 to 1987 the site was used as a garage for car repairs & around this time there was also a furniture making business mostly making simple rustic tables of all shapes & sizes. From 1984 planning permission was granted for the making, repairing, storing & selling of pallets, & in 1989 further planning was approved & the pallet company then built a 60' x 60' pre cast ''Atcost" concrete portal frame building for the storage & repair of pallets & it seems at some point in the 1990's the pallet company finally ceased trading & the land has been laying dormant since then, retired for a term allowing Mother nature to repair it's scars & it is this surrounding natural beauty that will be preserved & enhanced incorporating The Arts & Crafts Eco Project around mother natures work, & where I intend to start the Ace Eco Project by firstly converting this empty building into suitable showrooms & storage for the projects future bringing it back to life, & re cycling it's current redundant situation into a cutting edge state of the Art Sustainable Modernist Building, a statement we hope of modern design excellence that will re invent in some respects how building should be addressed now & into the 21st Century. Tony Geering MD www.acecoproject.co.uk www.puritanvalues.com |