The Friends Of Hope Mill

The Friends Of Hope Mill Hope Mill -1830's fully restored,water powered, sawmill. Guided historical tours of museum rooms, workshops and live demonstrations on the sawfloor.

Lumber and craft sales and womans woodworking courses. Open Thursdays April-November 9:30-4 pm Circa 1835 William Lang and his wife Jane (Stewart) Lang built a carding and fulling mill on the Indian River, a mile north of the village of Lang. The sawmill in Lang burned in 1873 and shortly thereafter, William and his son-in-law Richard Hope added a saw house to their mill. By 1892 the wool and card

ing business was discontinued and the Hope family provided much-needed lumbering services to the community until 1966. The original sawmill and wood-finishing equipment have been fully restored. In the upper floor of the building is a wood-working museum and archival records from the early wool and carding era. Come and watch the heritage equipment cut and finish lumber just like it was done by our pioneer ancestors The Hope Saw Mill also sells rough and finished lumber,contract sawing, wooden products are for sale hand made by museum volunteers. Free guided tours. Kids can build birdhouses to take home! A large collection of antique wood working tools, as well as a museum room dedicated to the Hope Family and wool processing room. The Hope Saw Mill is open on Thursdays from 9:30- 4:00 pm and three selected Sunday, one Sunday in June, July and August. FREE Admission , but donations gratefully accepted at the door.

Check out these 3 beautiful walnut logs! They will be sawn soon and put into our inventory for your next project maybe?
06/19/2026

Check out these 3 beautiful walnut logs! They will be sawn soon and put into our inventory for your next project maybe?

06/18/2026
It may be a grey day out but indoors at the Hope Mill it is a great day to come tour our museum rooms, watch live sawing...
06/18/2026

It may be a grey day out but indoors at the Hope Mill it is a great day to come tour our museum rooms, watch live sawing just like they did in the 1870’s and maybe buy some lumber for that next project! We are open until 4 pm!
Literally Everyone

Sometimes you need modern technology to fix old technology! We are getting closer to fixing and meshing up all the teeth...
06/12/2026

Sometimes you need modern technology to fix old technology! We are getting closer to fixing and meshing up all the teeth in the gears and aligning the shafts. It hasn’t been easy but hopefully next week we will have everything worked out and we will be running both turbines sending power to the saw house and the lower finishing workshop! We had more logs delivered today…we have orders to fill!

06/11/2026

Still working on getting the gears and shafts to line up properly! Seems like a never ending job but we will get there. Might not be sawing this morning. Hopefully this afternoon. We are open for lumber sales and tours (we just might not be sawing for a few hours) Literally Everyone

‘Tis the season for turtles! We have quite a lot of turtles around the mill who are nesting these days. If you come acro...
06/09/2026

‘Tis the season for turtles! We have quite a lot of turtles around the mill who are nesting these days. If you come across an injured turtle please help them! The OTCC is just a short drive away and they do amazing things to help rehabilitate the turtles so they can be returned to their homes one day.

Over the weekend, we surpassed 700 intakes and are currently receiving an extremely high volume of calls a day. Please read below for some helpful resources and reminders if we're unable to answer you right away during this busy time.

⚠️If you find an injured turtle, please place it in a dry container, note the exact location where it was found, and call us at 705-741-5000, option 9. Please leave only one voicemail and our team will get back to you as soon as they can. Our hospital is open daily between 8:00am-8:00pm, and if you can drive the turtle to us, please use our hospital entrance and hand it off to a staff member during these operating hours.

⚠️Can't drive to Peterborough? We can help assist getting the turtle to our hospital through our volunteer Turtle Taxi Program! You MUST have the turtle in your possession for us to be able to assist, as we don't have resources to travel and locate each turtle. Keep in mind that it will take time to arrange these rides. While you wait, leave the turtle in the well-ventilated container. Place it in a location that is dark, quiet, room temperature, and away from pets.

⚠️For nesting inquiries or concerns — please visit our website at ontarioturtle.ca/nest, call and use Line 4, or email [email protected]. To find turtle organizations near you that may be able to help, please visit www.otcn.ca.

📍2785 Television Road, Peterborough, ON

Thank you so much for your patience and support during this incredibly busy time!

Happy 20th re-birthday to us!!! Did you know the Hope Mill sat idle for a period of years before a group of retired GE e...
06/04/2026

Happy 20th re-birthday to us!!! Did you know the Hope Mill sat idle for a period of years before a group of retired GE engineers under the guidance of Bob Rehder worked with passion and determination and brought the mill back to life during the 1990’s-early 2000’s? The first log was cut on this day June 3 rd, 2006! We have been sawing logs ever since and we have only gotten bigger and better!! Come out to the Hope Mill on Thursdays and learn the almost 200 year history of the woollen/sawmill!

Yesterday was a busy day at the mill putting the gear back on the small turbine shaft. Lots of work involved from putti...
05/29/2026

Yesterday was a busy day at the mill putting the gear back on the small turbine shaft. Lots of work involved from putting the stop logs in our dam (to drain the penstock) to lifting the shaft out of the way in order to move the gear over to place it on the shaft and shimming up the metal gear to mesh it with the new teeth. It took a lot of effort from many volunteers! Next Thursday morning we will finish up and hopefully be sawing by mid day!

Thank you to our friends at Activity Haven Senior Center for having us come today for this weeks “Lunch and Learn”. We ...
01/22/2026

Thank you to our friends at Activity Haven Senior Center for having us come today for this weeks “Lunch and Learn”. We had such a great lunch and time talking about our mill we forgot to take some pictures of our display. It was great to see so may in attendance and interest in what it is that we do at the Hope Mill. We are so much more than just a bunch of guys (and a few girls) cutting wood on Thursday! Hopefully we will see a few out for tours and courses this summer!

Address

3414 Hope Mill Road
Keene, ON
K0L2B0

Opening Hours

9:30am - 4pm

Telephone

7052956250

Website

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