It represents an example of an industrial historic monument from the 1920s. The name “Nowość” [Novelty] given to the feature underlines the modernity of the technologies applied at the construction of the plant and the production process solution with a central drive based on a gas motor and a gas generator unit.

History

The feature was built in the years 1924-1928 at the initiative of a miller Marian Dąbrowski. The building was erected by applying an innovative technology of then: independently prefabricated concrete blocks. The plant in Niegów represented a type of American mill popularised in the 19th century, which limited human work owing to the mechanisation of the centrally-driven milling and transporting lines. In the case of the mill in Niegów, the power source was a Swiss gas engine and gas generator for suction gas, purchased in 1928. Some machines, among others, a grinder, were older and originated from other mills. The fixtures and fittings of the feature included milling machines, grain and grinding product cleaning machines, transport machines and raw material and product storage equipment. A wooden annex hosting a groat mill was added to the brick building. The mill also included an electric power generator of 3 kW power, for the purpose of illuminating the building, a bakery, an orangeade bottling plant and several houses. During World War II the mill was operated by the German occupant and later by the Red Army. In the years 1945-1946 it underwent renovation and in 1947 it was taken over by the state. Around 1950 changes were introduced to the system of machines. In 1955, after electrification of the village, an electric engine with 40 kW power became the main power source of the mill. In 1958 the owners regained the plant and leased it to Tadeusz Borowski, who managed it until 1968. In 1962, due to the construction of a house and a bakery, a wooden coke shed located near the engine building annex was torn down and a workshop was added to the south gable of the mill. In the 1970s a wooden groat mill was damaged. Around 2007 the Bractwo Zagrodzkie expressed interest in the fate of the unused mill, threatened by the extension of a nearby express road. Since 2013 its members have been successively renovating the historic feature, where they plan to open the Museum of Milling and Baking.

Description

The unique mill is located in Niegów, on the east side of the national express road S-8 Warsaw-Białystok, not far from the road node, to the north of Handlowa Street. It is a three-storey manufacturing building, erected on a rectangular floor plan, with a single-storey annex at the north gable that functioned as a building housing an engine and gas unit. The feature has a basement underneath parts of its structure and was built of concrete blocks laid on stone foundations. The brick annex at the southern gable is secondary and therefore it has not been covered by the conservation policy. The building is covered with a gable roof, while the annexes share shed roofs. Initially, the roofs were clad in roofing paper on an asphalt binder. Currently, they are clad in sheet metal. The feature has a wooden roof truss, ceilings, floors and stairs. The facades are mainly built of concrete blocks on the surface of which a historicizing, decorative form of coarsely levelled rustication was imitated. On the ground floor, separated from the top by a narrow cornice, the walls are smooth, while decorative blocks, slightly protruding from the wall face, circumscribe the main entrance and highlight the building’s corners (also on upper storeys). At the front, an eaves was installed on steel supports which has recently been clad in sheet metal. Longer walls of the mill are pierced by rows of rectangular window openings terminating in a segmental arch and barred with a metal grille. Windows on the east façade are located only on extreme axes. Between them, a currently nonexistent wooden annex of the grout plant was located, whose entrance opening has survived on the ground floor. Inside the building, the milling machines and devices were located on single-space storeys. The mill in Niegów is distinguished by the preserved original and to a great extent technically operational technological grain grinding system, used to produce flour and groats, as well as a unique gas engine and gas generating unit, along with devices necessary to produce water gas from coke. The milling machines, including three roller grinders, two chaff separators and a millstone for grain husking, angular and shake-out sifters for the purpose of cleaning grain and grinding products, were activated from the engine building, through a shaft and a line shaft unit on all floors. Raw materials were stored in containers initially located on the second storey, while bucket and screw conveyors and gravitational slides were used for their transporting. The displayed devices are supplemented by agricultural machines and tools.

The monument is open to visitors. Visiting is possible during regular events organised by Bractwo Zagrodzkie and by prior telephone arrangement.

Compiled by Małgorzata Laskowska-Adamowicz, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Regional Branch in Warsaw. 12-04-2017

Bibliography

• Januszewski S., Młyn motorowy „Nowość” w Niegowie, Redecz Krukowy 2013;
• Januszewski S., O młynie Niegowa, “Zabytki na Mazowszu 2013”, pp. 119-129;