Wilson Mill-Old Burlington Road District

Along Vine Brook in Bedford, a small district of about nine acres preserves the site of a mill that began with John Wilson's corn mill in the late 1600s. Foundation remnants, a spillway, a stone-lined streambed, a stone arch bridge over the falls and part of the original millpond survive, though highway construction in the 1950s and 1960s removed much of the pond. The site later housed a paper mill, which burned in 1846, and then a sawmill producing blinds and sashes, and operations ended around World War I or the 1920s. Three houses complete the district: the Georgian Bacon-Gleason-Blodgett Homestead of about 1740, with brick ends and a Colonial Revival rear remodeling, and two Colonial Revival houses from about 1900 and 1924 tied to the Hunt family. The district is recognized for its settlement and industrial history and for its architecture, with a period of significance from about 1740 to 1953.