SOISSONS, Picardie, Address available on request

A 19th-century watermill tucked away in the middle of countryside, 1 hour and 30 minutes from Paris. The property comes into view at the end of a lane, at the foot of a hill from where you can admire sweeping views of the valleys that form France's beautiful Aisne department. Indeed, the village lies upon a hill, at the top of which an art deco church towers, forming a landmark in the local region. This spot, reaching up to the heavens, was a sacred site in the Middle Ages. Joan of Arc and Saint Louis engaged in private prayer here. And more recently, the site was a strategic lookout post, coveted and occupied by the German army in the First World War. Later, in occupied France in the Second World War, the Germans settled into the village again and in this mill. The old mill was built in 1840. An engraved stone in the facade indicates this. The mill carried on grinding grains up to 1958. The edifice, made of dressed stone, towers above a millrace, which is filled with water from the river. This building housed both the miller and his milling mechanism. The building's impressive facade is almost 25 metres long. It is punctuated with eight bays of small-paned windows. A half-hipped slate roof crowns the edifice. The elevations are rather plain, except for three stringcourses that mark the different floors. Yet the feature that makes the building stand out is its bay of four vertically aligned doors with a wall dormer opening at the top. The mill towers in the middle of a vista that you look at from the entrance gate, between two long outbuildings that include a stable, a storehouse and a garage. At the back, the property stretches into a beautiful bucolic backdrop. Pasture, a vegetable patch, an orchard and tall trees line the river. The water is clear. And the four hectares of grounds form a vast, delightful natural haven.