CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 65, 17 March 1945, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

TH« OLD MIIjIi (To the Editor) May a plea be made for the preservation of the old mill just where it stands? Surely something can be done to arouse the national spirit for a campaign throughout the country for the preservation of this stalwart old relic of our early pioneers. A small periphery of a few feet around the tower and a narrow front entrance of a few feet front say Symonds Street would be sufficient. That the old mill will be obscured and surrounded by tall buildings in the near future should not be a reason against its preservation on its present site but rather otherwise. Many years ago when visiting London I was told to visit a very old church at Smithfield, so ancient that it Aventback to the time of that king who when heavily bereaved the poet wrote "he never smiled again." A friend and I early one morning found Smithfield but not the church until, asking a policeman, we were directed to a small gate in the square that led to our objective. Now that famous old church, visited fcy thousands of tourists every year, was originally in open fields, but was practically obscured by business premises and warehouses. The old mill is on a site which in its heyday caught all the winds that blew and would fitly illustrate how a mighty city grew from small but staunch beginnings, honest work, individual effort and endeavour. Its workmanship is of the kind that would last a thousand years like the old church. Our farmers, millers,rgrain growers, merchants, yachtsmen, seamen arid the whole community north, south, east and west, should be given -an opportunity to help to preserve-the finest existing relic of early Auck« land. AULD LANG SYNE. ,