CARTIERA DI VILLANOVA DELLA CARTERA

Around 1300 this building was part of a mill, it was then converted or enlarged into a paper mill around 1700 and from 1899 to 1960 it was a hydroelectric powerplant. Today the building is abandoned and partly in ruin; inside you can still see the big alternator.

The site lies along the Roggia Il Mulino (an irrigation ditch called Il Mulino), whose course was partly changed by man but follows an ancient course of the Tagliamento river during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The river used to flow along this route between 1500 and 1696 and was later abandoned because of an alluvion which brought the riverbed further eastwards. The Roggia del Molino was artificially modified to change its width and hydraulic drop in order to beused to set the mill, the paper mill and finally the hydroelectric power plantgoing. A lot of filling material has been brought to the area of the paper millto arrange the landscape according to its uses during the different periods oftime. A project for the renovation not only of the building but also of the mill and the whole area has been made, as this part of the region has great historical, social and environmental value.