Short history of Csorgo watermill in Nagyvazsony
Csörgő Mill is one of the three oldest mills in Nagyvázsony, Veszprém County. Although this watermill was put out of service several decades ago, its building is still saturated with the history and anecdotes of the four centuries when the flow of the Séd Creek – also known today as Eger-víz (Eger Water) – kept the waterwheel turning. The water flowing some 300 yards away from the Mill in the streambed of the Séd (an archaic word of unknown origin that means ‘small stream’) used to supply the energy for many similar watermills in the area.
Most of these old mills are no longer operational, but in this rural region – flanked by the two larger towns of Veszprém in the East and Tapolca in the West – there are several current initiatives to restore and preserve the old watermills as industrial monuments. The closest restored mill is the one formerly known as the Szaller Water Mill – now Falumalom (Village Mill) – located in Kapolcs, Veszprém County, which houses a museum. The energy taken from the water flow of the Séd was not the sole natural resource in the area that the Mill relied on. The oak trees located at Kab-hegy – a mountain peak to the North – and in other forests of the Bakony Mountain supplied the timber used to construct the waterwheel itself, and the other machinery necessary for milling grain.
Prior to its construction, monks belonging to the Pauline Order – officially called the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, the only monastic order of Hungarian founding –, who lived in the nearby Saint Michael Monastery, used the land around the Mill. Archeological excavations conducted here revealed that this plot of land was most likely used as the cabbage garden of the Monastery. Both the Csörgő Mill and the Castle of Nagyvázsony (aka Kinizsi Castle) were constructed at the same time in the 15th century. Initially, the primary function of the Mill was to help feed the castle guards: the grains were milled and then the flour produced was transported to the Castle, where it was turned into basic food items for the residents. Following the control of the Castle lords, the Mill came to be owned by the Zichy Family. From the 17th century onward millers had to rent the Mill from this noble family until as late as the mid-20th century, when it was nationalized (1951), and eventually shuttered for good in 1963.
The mill in the 1940s. From the family archive of Béla Csurgo, whose family rented the mill through the XIX. and XX. centaury.
