Architecture of water mills in the central part of western Serbia

Abstract

Water mills are important economic facilities of rural households. They are built on the edge of a lot near the water stream in order to preserve arable land. They have a similar organization as economic and residential buildings in rural garden. The internal organization of the building may consist of one, two or more rooms. The central room contains mill mechanism and grain and flour storage. Larger water mills include a separate room for the miller. Some water mills have porch. Building corpus is a wooden skeleton with horizontal planks. The building rests on the ground in two ways: a) on a stone foundation and wooden logs, b) on a stone wall. The roof is hipped, covered with wooden shingles, stone slabs or ceramic tiles. A large number of objects are out of order and subject to rapid deterioration.