Mapledurham Watermill, the building that featured on the cover of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album 52 years ago, has been vandalised.
The picturesque 1970 debut cover of Mapledurham Watermill in Oxfordshire is the scene on Black Sabbath’s album ‘Black Sabbath’, with a mysterious woman wearing a black cloak standing in front and is one of the most famous images in heavy metal.
Police said the windows of the mill, in Mapledurham, Oxfordshire, were smashed, with significant damage to the wooden frames. Officers have linked five boys and one girl to the incident. They are believed to be between the ages of 15 and 16 and are from the Purley area.
The building dates back to 1690 and remains the only one on the River Thames still producing stone-ground flour.
The model on the infamous album cover was Louisa Livingstone, who told Rolling Stone magazine it was a really cold day and she was literally freezing. was when photographer Keith Macmillan did the shoot.
She said she had to get up at 4:AM and Keith was throwing dry ice into the water for atmosphere but it wasn’t working very well so they ended up using a smoke machine.
