Monday, November 16, 2020

At the end of a long, private drive, another Hall's Mills home

There are not many homes in the Hall's Mills neighbourhood, and there seem to a fair number of empty lots, all this would work to make this an enviable place for one's new home if it were not for one thing: water. Flood water to be exact. Hall's Mills was established before there were municipal laws restricting the erecting of buildings on flood plain lands.

Existing buildings are permitted to remain and these buildings can benefit from minor renovations, alterations or additions as long as everything is done with the approval of council in cooperation with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority.

Clearly modifying the homes in Hall's Mills is difficult. I understand some homes have been purchased by the city, rented out briefly and then demolished. It appears more than the nearby river is out to sweep Hall's Mills away. 

For all these reasons, a visit to Hall's Mills is a trip back in time. The homes appear very much as they did when built, sometime more than a hundred years ago.

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