West Marlborough Township: Mill at Stone Barn quickly reduced to rubble

As expected, The Mill at the Stone Barn is being torn down. Heavy snow back in February caused the banquet hall's roof to collapse, and it had been sitting unused since then, surrounded by an orange safety fence. The owners obtained a demolition permit in July, and when I drove past on Aug. 19 I spotted an excavator surrounded by the rubble of part of the building, with the tall stone chimney in the background. Let's hope they can rebuild it: I for one missed seeing the wedding parties gather by the pond this summer.

 

The afternoon of Aug. 21, however, the excavator experienced a spot of bother while continuing its task: it slipped over to its right side at a sharp angle while its bucket was ripping down the roof, and couldn't regain its footing in the unstable rubble. Fortunately the operator wasn't hurt.

 

A huge crane was brought in, and the rescuers attached metal cables to the excavator and started to coax it upright. The operator got back into the cab, started it up again, and, with the help of the crane, gradually managed to back out and regain equilibrium. (It was like watching somebody slowly being extricated from a muddy parking spot, with lots of starts and stops.) The bucket made loud cracking and ripping noises as it detached itself from the rafters and the roof.

 

 

 

 

As soon as he was upright again, the operator swiveled the cab around and got out to check his machine for damage. The rescuers unhooked their cables and started to retract them. All in a day's work! Within an hour the crane was gone.