Hüvener mill

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Hüvener mill

The Hüvener Mühle is one of the last completely preserved combined wind and water mills in Europe and is located in the Emsland district in western Lower Saxony ( Germany ).

The mill is depicted on the coat of arms of the Lower Saxony-Bremen mill association and is one of the tourist attractions in the area surrounding the hilly geest landscape of the Hümmling .

geography

The Hüvener Mühle is located on the Mittelradde river, almost 2 km south-southeast of the village of Hüven, 20 km northeast of the city of Meppen .

history

The Hüvener mill before restoration

In 1534 the "Erffkotter tho Hüven de Moller" is mentioned for the first time in a document. The Hüvener Mill, which existed as a watermill at that time, is probably much older. It burned down completely in 1801. The new building, also just a water mill, was able to go back into operation on June 21, 1802. An application to build an additional windmill in Hüven was rejected by the prefect of the Lingen district in 1812 after the owner of the watermill, Johann Gertmöller, protested.

Since the Mittelradde was and is only a small river, the miller could only put the mill into operation with the help of a large dammed up mill pond and then only grind the most necessary grain. At that time, at other comparable locations, watermills were converted from grain to oil mills , for example , or shut down and windmills were built elsewhere for grinding grain.

The then miller Abel did not want to give up the water mill. Together with the mill builder Bernhard Dierkes from Hüven, he was looking for an alternative, which the latter constructed as a windmill to be built onto the water mill. This could be switched on via a clutch if required : a type of mill that has been known for a long time but has never been used in Lower Saxony. The building permit was granted on August 21, 1850 by the Royal Hannoversche Landdrostei in Osnabrück . The topping-out ceremony took place one year later, and on June 21, 1852, exactly on the 50th anniversary of the new water mill, the mill was able to go into operation in its present form. When the water level was sufficient, the miller continued to grind the grain with water power; if the water level fell, he could also use the wind power. About ten years later the water mill in Herßum also commissioned such a construction from Dirkes.

In 1890 Lukas Riedemann from Neubörger leased the mill, after his death his son Heinrich became the miller. In the 1920s the windmill was shut down, after the collapse of the weir in 1950, the authorities ordered the water mill to be shut down as well. The structure was left to decay for the time being.

Even back then, its uniqueness prompted the local associations in particular to keep the mill. As early as 1954, the Emsland Homeland Association was able to carry out the most necessary security work with funds from the Aschendorf-Hümmling district . In 1955 the Aschendorf-Hümmling local history association acquired the mill and over the next two years fundamentally repaired it. In previous years, however, the Mittelradde had been diverted to a new river bed away from the mill as part of the wheel deregulation . As a result, there was not enough water left to start the water mill again. The windmill also remained out of service in the following decades. However, the Heimatverein opened the mill as a technical monument for visitors.

Despite repeated conservation measures, the ravages of time gnawed: in 2003 one of the mill's wings broke off in a storm. One of the following reports by the Emsland district also determined that the entire building had shifted and the mill was infested with wooden beetles. As a result, they were closed to the public.

After two years of renovation (see following section), the mill has been open to the public again since June 2006; Milling demonstrations also take place regularly.

Until about the 1930s, another water mill, as was on the opposite Raddeufer oil and Walke mill was used. Little is known about the history of this mill; it was probably built after the first mill at the current location and was shut down in the 1920s. A documentary mention can be found in 1851 in a report by the road supervisor A. Westermann. The mill is shown on a photo from 1925, a survey from 1931 still shows the floor plan, in the following years this second Hüvener mill was likely to have been demolished. Nothing is left of this mill today.

Restoration 2004–2006

The Hüvener Mühle during restoration in July 2005

The Heimatverein Aschendorf-Hümmling, as the owner of the mill, campaigned for the repair of the mill again and was able to award the first work in 2004 with funds from several pots (see below). First, the Mittelradde was relocated back to its old river bed along the mill, then the structure was dried and the pest infestation was fought. To the building straighten a foundation came up with up to 13 meter long piles of steel (in the past 200 years, the soil was lowered below the mill part, the mill had fallen so into trouble). Most of the interior and exterior walls were also rebuilt: the originally planned timeframe of over a year has been exceeded by far.

A model of the Hüvener Mühle from the Museum of Industrial Culture Osnabrück , which the Artland sculptor Karl Allöder had constructed in the 1930s according to plans by the engineer Speckter on a scale of 1:20, provided valuable services during the restoration .

In particular, the production of the components based on historical models was particularly complex and required some craftsmanship that is now almost forgotten. In addition to the handcrafted oak shingles for the windmill, the wall construction of the water mill stands out in particular: The compartments of the framework were made in 1802 with a mixture of clay , sand , straw , whey and cow dung. In order to restore the mill true to the original, a company specializing in clay walls used this technique and produced the mixtures on the construction site.

The mill in its current state is therefore outwardly in the same architectural style, but with components from the four different construction phases: the load-bearing structure of the water mill and large parts of the mill technology are from 1801, the windmill from 1850/51. Some smaller details such as the infilling of the beams on the water side - there used to be only a simple board cladding - come from the first restoration in 1957. Above all, the additional load-bearing components in the foundation, but also the water wheel and weir of the water and gallery and codend of the windmill are new buildings from 2005.

Hüvener Mühle on the Mittelradde
Hüvener Mühle water wheel

The renovation cost a total of 1.05 million euros . The following institutions made the money available:

In addition to the work on the mill itself, the environment was also "prepared". In the past 50 years, several trees had grown around the mill, which made it difficult to use the wind. Some of these trees were felled and the mill moat was restored. In addition, the cobblestone pavement of the old road was exposed again directly along the mill, which is now without traffic after being relocated to the northeast in 1955.

On June 16, 2006, after the work was completed, the mill was inaugurated again and two days later it was opened to the public again with a folk festival. After the Heimatverein has trained several people to be millers, grain is ground regularly again.

literature

  • Hermann Röttgers: The Hüvener Mühle. In: Yearbook of the Emsland Heimatbund. Vol. 29, 1983, ISSN  0448-1410 , pp. 35-48 ( PDF; 834 kB ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b "The restoration of the Hüvener Mühle" on the homepage of the Aschendorf-Hümmling home association

Web links

Commons : Hüvener Mühle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 46 ′ 18.4 "  N , 7 ° 33 ′ 51.4"  E