Mill destruction

We continue our house-hunting efforts, looking for our retirement home, in the hope that we will sell our current place in the next five years or so.   We went to see an ex-watermill not far from a small village called Préau.  It comprises four buildings that were rebuilt  about 40 years ago,  two of them in columbage, which is unusual for the Mayenne.  They are really very pretty.

The river, however is a disaster, and any energy-generating potential it had has been destroyed (although it could of course, in principle, be rebuilt).  The excuse is increased health of fish life in the river, which argument seems scientifically doubtful, but the reason, I suspect, is that the state wants to claim the right to generate electricity, in, say, 30 years' time.

There are four buildings in all; the main house, two independent dwellings (one with a kitchen) and a shed, plus ten hectares of managed forest.  Although the buildings are beautiful, in the end we reckon that three separate living spaces isn't going to suit our lifestyle as we get older.