Welcome
Welcome to our web-site! We hope browsing this site will give you the inspiration to visit us so we can extend our brand of hospitality to you in person. We really do get great pleasure from sharing this special place with others.
In keeping with the calming influence of the Mill's environment and our own desire for quality of life we offer a friendly, relaxed and hospitable stay. We will do what we can to ensure you enjoy your visit to North Norfolk, providing suggestions and loaning books and maps to help you discover the area. The comments in our visitors' book speak for themselves.
Lis & Peter Downs.
Relax In Hidden North Norfolk
Some people call it “the hidden valley”, but to us it is simply the Upper Bure a river that is fast becoming recognised for the quality of its natural habitat. Itteringham is at the heart of this special place. A tiny village with church, shop and pub and about 100 inhabitants Itteringham is a real gem nestling next to the river and surrounded by fields and woodland. The Bure is a spring fed river of great quality, as evidenced by the thriving population of brown trout and stands of water-cress growing wildly along its banks. Besides fish it hosts ,among others, the rare native crayfish, otters and water-voles.
The Mill stands out well in this landscape. As you come from Aylsham over the brow of the hill above the village you will see the Mill and its outbuildings away to the right, bordered on the south by open fields and everywhere else by trees – weeping willow, birch and alder. In the afternoon sun its brickwork of Norfolk soft reds glows with reflected warmth.
The Mill is an ideal place to un-wind or to use as a centre for a holiday in North Norfolk. Roughly equidistant from the coast and the Broads it is close enough to all the main attractions to be convenient, but far enough away to ensure a very real sense of tranquility.
Visit one of the "greenest" buildings in East Anglia
During 2009 we have undertaken our own “Grand Design” completely rebuilding the rear of the house with a glazed curtain wall which allows light into the building and makes the fantastic views down river available from almost anywhere in the house. We also re-arranged the internal space. This put into place the final elements of our green building programme. In 2006 we installed a micro-hydro turbine on the river to generate electricity. During 2009 we put in a heat pump to extract heat from the river. This heats the house via an intelligently controlled, multi-zone underfloor heating system. We also installed solar panels for hot water; water-saving dual-flush toilets; Miro Eco-showers that give a full shower feeling but reduce water consumption; rain-water recycling for flushing toilets. We have also replaced virtually all of the single glazed windows, significantly up-rated the insulation and installed low energy lighting. All this in a building that dates from 1778. We contribute annually to the CPRE Green Buildings in Norfolk open days and following an energy audit have recently (March 2010) become an exemplary site in the Old Homes, Superhomes project run by the National Energy Foundation and the Sustainable Energy Foundation.
In keeping with these environmental principles we are trying to reduce our use of potentially harmful chemicals. Most new paintwork internally has used zero VOC paints and wood wax treatments have used water-based, chemical solvent-free waxes. We are also using E-cloths and steam-treatment for cleaning, in order to reduce our use of chemical cleaning compounds.