Progreston Falls is a terraced curtain waterfall located in the Carlisle section of Hamilton. It is on private property, though, and is not easily accessible for viewing unless permission from the owner is obtained. A fence has recently been built and there is a gate at Progreston Road. Its height is 6.7 metres or 22 feet, and its width is 16.5 metres or 54 feet. Progreston Falls is situated in the Bronte Creek near Progreston Road, below a railway bridge, and has a year round flow.
History
Once known as one of the most active milling spots along the Twelve Mile Creek, the community of Progreston deteriorated rapidly as the twentieth century progressed, and by the 1950s was reduced to a handful of residents and the Bennett feed mill, which stood on the ruins of an older mill.
Eighty-five year old Spencer Bennett told a Spectator reporter in 1952, “In the early days, there was a big woollen mill, grist mill, sawmills, and Peg factory, store, and more houses than there are today. The peg factory burned when I was a young boy; the woollen mill burned in 1911; the big grist mill burned in 1939 when I owned it, and I guess some sawmills burned too.”
John Castle, aged eighty, said, “Progreston just isn’t what it used to be. Why, I well remember when there used to be a row of houses and a corner general store and a blacksmith shop on the Progreston-Carlisle road.”
Howard Green credited Progreston’s boom years to the presence of the creek. “Progreston was once a real manufacturing centre on account of the available water power, but times have changed. Fire wiped out the main mills here but I guess they would have fallen victim to changing times anyway.”
Progreston Falls Photo Gallery
