Charliers Mill Roetgen
Charliers-Mühle (also Kaufmanns-Mühle ) is a former watermill in Roetgen and was one of the so-called Bannmühlen in the Monschauer Land.
investment
The outlines of the former mill pond can still be clearly seen today. An earth dam about 80 meters long was built. The pond was 130 meters long towards the Weser . At the top it was 60 meters wide. It covered an area of 8,750 m 2 . The supply line from the pond to the water wheel was 20 meters and the drainage or overflow ditch was 12 meters long. A solid wooden footbridge 1.5 meters wide and 20 meters long was built over the Weserbach - today's Mühlenstraße, which at that time consisted of an unpaved field path, a "drive". The bridge over the Weserbach did not yet exist. In their place was a deep ford. The Weser bed was considerably widened on both sides in the direction of the path so that the gradient of the path from the Weser bed was not too great. Before the confluence with the mill pond, a branch of the mill ditch 62 meters in length led the water back into the Weser during floods or when the mill pond was full after opening a sluice.
The mill building was built on a single storey with no apartment, only for the mill operation from rubble stones , which arose during the excavation work and the preparation of the Weserbach. The mill wheel , an overshot paddle wheel, was installed east of the mill .
Seen from the path at that time and from the ford , the mill appeared to be higher than it looks today from Mühlenstrasse.
In 1840 Friedrich Eugen Ludwig Charlier had a new floor and a gable block made of bricks with a stone frame made of bluestone, limestone, built above the ground floor, which was made of quarry stone. The iron anchors on the gable side indicate the years 1768 and 1840. The bricks were made in the so-called "field fire" in the neighboring brickworks of Mayor Johann Lütgen.
history
In 1768 Johann Peter Kaufmann received permission from Elector Karl Theodor von der Pfalz to build a mill together with his wife Anna Lütgen in Roetgen on the Weser. At the same time he acquired the right to the Bannmühle. As a result, the residents of the Roetgen mayor's office were obliged to have the grain ground or crushed there. The community gave the required land in Riethsbruch - partly wasteland , partly woodland and partly marshland - at a reasonable price, as the new site was convenient for the residents of Roetgen.
The mill was run by a miller who was in the service of Johann Peter Kaufmann. Mill operations started well and provided a good source of income.
After the death of Johann Peter Kaufmann on January 10, 1786, the mill became the property of his son Johann Mathias Kaufmann. He was born in Roetgen in April 1750 and, in addition to the mill, ran a flourishing weaving and dyeing factory .
Johann Mathias Kaufmann continued to run the mill by employing a miller and other workers on a larger scale. In 1795 the French administration lifted the compulsory meal for all ban mills. In view of the long distance to a mill outside of Roetgen, this had no influence on the scope of the mill operations. After the death of his wife Cornelia geb. Weidenbach 1784 married Johann Mathias Kaufmann on October 23, 1789 Petronella Mathee, daughter of the married couple Hubert Mathee and Agnes Lütgen. On February 9, 1822, Johann Mathias Kaufmann died without any descendants.
His widow Petronella b. Mathee died on October 15, 1826. The extensive property of Johann Kaufmann was taken over by a community of heirs.
Friedrich Eugen Ludwig Charlier took over the ownership of the mill from the "Johann Kaufmann heirs". Crämer was born.
The mill was named "Charliers-Mühle" after the owner Friedrich Eugen Ludwig Charlier. It is not possible to determine precisely how long he has lived in the mill and, among other things, operated under his own direction while employing a miller. As a result of the poor economic situation, especially in the textile industry and the limited employment opportunities in Roetgen, Friedrich Charlier leased the mill and moved with his family to Aachen. J. Laschet from Eupen was a long-term tenant .
Around 1872 some of the mill's outbuildings burned down. Although the damage was soon repaired, J. Laschet gave up the lease and moved to Eupen.
Johann Peter Kever, a resident of the Raeren district of Petergensfeld , who lives on the Weserbach on the other side of Mühlenstrasse, took over the mill. With the purchase on June 23, 1874, the mill and the associated lands came into his possession.
Because of the expansion of the Vennbahn, built in the years 1883–1885, and the laying of a water line to Roetgen station, the railway administration was forced to buy the Charliers mill with the associated lands in order to obtain water rights. As a result, the mill operation was stopped and the house was made available to the railway employees as an official residence.
According to the Versailles Treaty of January 10, 1920, the railway line had to be ceded to Belgium from November 1, 1921 , Charliers-Mühle remained in the possession of the German railway administration.
Felix Knott now leased the property with the adjoining meadows and ran a productive agriculture. At the beginning of the 1930s he was able to purchase the house and the adjoining garden from the German Reichsbahnverwaltung.
After the German-Belgian cultural agreement of September 24, 1956, the German-Belgian border was u. a. redefined in the area of the municipality of Roetgen. The diversion of the upper Weserbach in Belgian territory to the Steinbach and the construction of a tunnel to divert the remaining water from the Weserbach near Charliers-Mühle to the Grölisbach were in order to keep the water of the Eupen dam , that of the drinking water supply of Eupen and other cities, like Seraing south of Liège serves, provided.
In 1963, the tunnel beginning in front of the house was built with great effort. A “return ditch” built as part of these agreements, which directs the surface water from the “Foulleborn” at the edge of the forest on the German-Belgian border into the Weserbach tunnel, ends next to the house at the inlet to the Weser.
The Knott family gave up farming at the end of 1977 and sold the house, which was in extremely bad condition, to the architect Karl-Heinz Mallman from Roetgen, who subjected the house to a thorough repair. In 2001 the Axmacher family acquired the Charliers mill.
literature
- Charlèe`ter Mühle , in: Hermann Josef Cosler: Schriften eines Monscheuer , Roetgen 1864–1871, pp. 74–75 ( pdf ).
- Josef Kreitz: Die Mühle , in: Monschauer Land 1955, p. 370ff
- Wolfgang Schumacher: Roetgens mill today a showpiece again , in: Eifeler Nachrichten .
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 38 ′ 38.9 " N , 6 ° 10 ′ 43.9" E