The first information we come across directs us to Count Schafgotsch and a settlement called Pańska Wieś (then Hernsdorf). It is the first of the four villages created during the Thirty Years’ War, which in 1937 made up Czerniawa-Zdrój, which we know today.
The mill currently visited was built in 1890. The work in it was carried out using an overshot water wheel with a diameter of 6.5 m. Before the war, the building belonged to the Count, and the miller, who lived in it with his family, was a tenant.
Since 1945, the mill has been owned by the town. Until 2010, it was leased by the Pietrasz family. In the 1930s, an electric motor was installed in the mill, which made its operation independent of the water level in Czarny Potok. It was possible to use both cheaper water and a slightly more expensive electric drive to operate the mill.
Until the 1990s, the facility functioned as a farm mill, but when flour in stores became widely available and ultimately cheaper than growing grain on less fertile mountain soils, fewer and fewer farmers came to grind grain.
Tourism became a means of survival. Mr. Adam Pietrasz began to guide visitors around the mill, tell how such a mill works, show the wheel that has not been working since the 1950s… He treated the visitors to bread with lard, which he had melted himself, and whoever wished could buy his products.
In 2010-2012, the mill was restored with EU support. In the years 2014-2019, the attraction was made available free of charge, tourists were treated to bread baked in the mill, baking workshops were held, and workshop participants were taught, among others, how to make butter. In 2019, the town councilors decided to entrust the facility to an institution subordinated to the town. From autumn 2019, admission and workshops became payable. In 2021, the mayor of Świeradów-Zdrój began convincing the councilors that the facility should be committed to an entrepreneur who would have more time to develop it as a tourist attraction. The discussions were stormy and lasted for 3 sessions of the town council, and finally in November 2021, the town council decided to lease Czarci Młyn with 4 votes abstaining, 4 against and 5 for.
