Eselsmühle, Historic watermill in Siebenmühlental, Germany

Eselsmühle is a historic grain mill along a stream in the Seven Mills Valley that now operates as a restaurant and bakery. The buildings retain traditional wooden construction, working milling machinery, and multiple wood-fired ovens for baking.

Grain was ground here by 1451, when a Württemberg building register listed it as "milin am Eychberg"; it burned down around 1524 and was rebuilt by Jörg Scheffer and Zyr Stebler. The name Eselsmühle appears in 1582. From 1795 to 1937 the mill was run by a branch of the Lorenz family, four of whose owners were named Karl, hence Karlesmühle. The fourth Karl Lorenz demolished it in 1894 and built anew; Gottlieb Lorenz sold it in 1937 to Rudolf and Gertrud Gmelin, and a British bombing raid damaged it in 1944.

The name Eselsmühle was first recorded in 1582, possibly referring to mould on flour sacks rather than donkeys. Since 1951 the mill has held Demeter certification, and its wood-fired bakery produces 18 bread varieties, baking 10,000–12,000 loaves weekly for 120 shops and several markets.

The mill stands on a side channel of the Reichenbach in the Siebenmühlental, downstream of the Mäulesmühle; the water wheel now serves only as a reserve power source. The café occupies the first floor of the building erected in 1949, and the former barn has been converted into an event room. The site is a protected monument, and the main building was badly damaged by a major fire on 17 July 2023, so check current access before visiting.

In the room that housed the bakery until 1959, beside the shop, a geological collection is displayed: fossil shark teeth from around Heidenheim, an ammonite nearly 50 cm across from Leinfelden-Unteraichen, and a petrified mammoth tusk from Steinheim an der Murr.