Arro

Arro is at 10 km on the road from L'Ainsa to Campo. You will find the mill about 1 km earlier. Look for the circle on map 212 of the Spanish Instituto Geográfico y Catastral (2a edición 1952). The map suggests that the mill is on the Río Lanata. This is not correct; the mill is on the same rivulet as the former spa of Arro (baños on the map: another badly neglected aspect of Aragón's past).

All pictures: 21.XII.1998

(1) Overview of the construction.

The mill was only part of a larger construction which is in a very bad state. Only the small single room visible right in (1) is in good shape. The part of the mill proper is almost entirely gone (1 left, 2). The wall at the back did survive and also parts of the base of the front wall (3 left), but nothing more. The mill is built on the river bank and the water is remorselessly undermining the foundations (2).

It is giving us some insights about the inner structure. Firstly the depth and width of the base of the walls. Next the earth between the walls. It looks not like the cárcavo was dug out the ground, but rather as if the space between the walls was filled with sand around a vault destined to become the cárcavo. The floor of the workplace came on top of this sand.

(2) The remains of the mill next to the river.

(3) The mouth of the cárcavo.

A wide, and still solid, arch (3) gives access to a spacious cárcavo. The roof is very thick and is formed by the arch covered with a layer of flat stones. A narrow strip (4) is thinner with only the top layer and features perforations for the axle and controls like the elevator. Through an opening (5) we could spot the ridges of an old mill stone.

We did look around for a pond and other waterworks, and we could find some traces of a canal, which was wider in places, but we were not able to find a dam (azud) nor a clearly defined pond or pressure pit.

What we did find was a small bridge (7) crossing the canal and a decommissioned stone (8).