THE owner of a historic water mill has taken to eBay to sell his treasured landmark to pay off bank debts.
Mike Kilgannon has spent more than £700,000 renovating Rossett water mill in the past 40 years but is reluctantly having to sell the Grade II listed tourist attraction to pay off his mortgage debts.
The 68-year-old, who lives in the 16th century mill with his partner Sian, has spent the last 12 months unsuccessfully trying to sell the three-storey property, which comes with a two-storey coach house – built by Mr Kilgannon – and 7.5 acres of land next to the River Alwyn.
He had now taken to the online bidding site to try to sell his beloved home for the asking price of £1.25m. The mill has also been listed on property website Rightmove with a guide price of £1.1m.
He said: “Using eBay is the last thing I have tried. It’s been on sale for a year but it hasn’t generated much interest.
“I’ve tried everything else – I am always a trier. I had a friend in London who successfully bought a mill on eBay, so I just thought ‘oh well, we’ll see what happens with it’. These days you have to go global with these things.
“The mill is my life. I’ve known other people who have moved 10 times in 40 years, but I’ve stayed here and have put my life into it. I invested a lot of money – I would say over the years I’ve put more than £700,000 into it.”
Mr Kilgannon, who has had a lifelong interest in antiques, bought the property in 1973 after spending much of his childhood being fascinated with the way the mill ran.
Since then, he has dedicated his life to restoring the property back to its former glory and now holds open days to members of the public and local schoolchildren.
He also sells the homemade flour produced at the mill to restaurants and pubs in the nearby communities.
He said: “All sorts of people come to visit the mill – I have seen a thousand people in just three days come to see it.
“It was almost derelict when I bought it. I even had to get all the water back in for it to work again.
“I have been in the furniture and antique business all my life and I saw it was up for sale and it was just so fantastic I knew I just had to get it a restore it. I didn’t know how to do it, but I knew I needed to. I had a great group of friends and tradesmen who helped me.”
Mr Kilgannon says one of the main attractions of the mill, which was first built in 1588 and later extended in 1661, is its rich history and stunning setting.
Its beauty even moved one of England’s finest landscape artists JMW Turner to paint the mill in the late 18th century.
Mr Kilgannon said: “The history of it is unbelievable. I have people from all over the world sending me items to do with the mill – old pictures and paintings and things. I have boxes and boxes of stuff.”
He says he would like to see the Mill continue to work under the new owner, and has even offered his services to help keep it running.
He said: “People feel very strongly about it and they have been protesting. One man rang me up and told me that I had saved the mill.
“If the new owner wanted me to, I would run it for them or teach them how to do it – it makes lovely stone-ground flour.
“I am definitely planning to stay in the area. I have nothing else.”
‘);
tm.siteLife.daapi.getArticle(
“54-91466-30217472”,
function(article){
tm.siteLife.display.displayCommentCount(
article,
‘sitelife-commentsWidget-middle’,
false,
‘Comments’,
true,
false
);
}
);
})();//call anonymous function
//]]