Kaisermühle (Viersen)

In the past centuries there were a total of 18 mills in the municipality of Viersen. Four of them were horse oil mills, as hammer mills . These were operated by horse power. There were also two windmills , the Hoser and Hüsterfeld windmills , both of which were privately owned.

It was different with the watermills. The pen St. Gereon in Cologne had the basic rule of Viersen and the water rights on the streams in Viersen. The construction of watermills required his approval. The monastery granted mill rights as a hereditary fiefdom and received an annual tenancy from them. This had to be delivered to the parish office of St. Remigius. These documents show that there were twelve water mills in Viersen as early as 1246. All mills, with the exception of the monastery mill , paid a sum (about one hundredweight) of malt annually as loan interest. In the glory of Viersen there was no pressure to mill . All farmers could have milled wherever they wanted.

These twelve mills were on:

" Dorfer Bach ": Kaisermühle, Kimmelmühle , Goetersmühle , Biestenmühle and Schricksmühle
" Hammer Bach ": Plinzenmühle , Schnockesmühle , Sgoedenmühle , Bongartzmühle, Hüstermühle and Hammer Mühle
" Rintger Bach ": Klostermühle

geography

The Kaisermühle is located at Dorfer Bach , An der Kaisermühle 20, in the Noppdorf district in the town of Viersen in the Viersen district. In front of the mill is a pond , the water level of which is 51 m above sea level. The pond of the Kaisermühle is also the headwaters of the Dorfer Bach. The Kaisermühle is the first of five mills on the Dorfer Bach. The Kimmelmühle buildings are located below at Kaiserstraße 6-10.

The Dorfer Bach supplied five mills with water for centuries. It is partially channeled today. The mill ponds are all filled up except for the pond of the Kaisermühle. The care and maintenance of the water is the responsibility of the water and soil association of the Middle Niers, which is based in Grefrath .

history

The Kaisermühle, An der Kaisermühle 20 in Viersen, was called Abrahamsmühle for several centuries . Between 1397 and 1762 the millers all came from the Abraham family, who still lived in Viersen. It is one of the twelve water mills in Viersen, which was burdened with an inheritance pension in 1246. The Abrahamsmühle provided the St. Gereon Abbey with an annual contribution of nine Malter rye . It was an oil and grain mill . From 1575 to 1599 a Keyser T'Abrahams is attested as the owner of the mill. Keyser is clearly mentioned here as a nickname. This miller built a new mill, which, as was customary at the time, was henceforth called Kaisermühle after the client's nickname. This name gradually caught on from 1591 and eventually replaced the old name. In 1730 the Kaisermühle and the two Vallenhöfe on the other side of the street burned down completely. The mill was soon rebuilt as a single-storey brick building with a gable roof . Today's mill building bears the year 1732 on the northern gable wall in Ankersplinten. Since the terrain and the mill pond were considerably higher to the west than the river bed , the water could serve the mill in overshot. From the water wheel, the torque was passed through a transmission into the mill, where a gear train set two millstone runners in motion. The daily grind capacity of the mill in 1809 was six Malter grain. The falling water level and the waterworks built in 1890 let the required water level of the mill pond decrease. In 1905 the mill was finally stopped. Part of the mill was converted into a restaurant as early as 1877 , which developed into a popular excursion destination.

After the Second World War , the heyday of the renowned restaurant came to an end. In 1971 the city of Viersen acquired the Kaisermühle. In 1974 the former mill pond was dredged, desludged and cleared of rubbish. The pond was fortified and transformed into a public park . The slowly dilapidated mill should be demolished due to lack of interested parties, but the mill found a buyer before the deadline . After extensive restoration with high financial resources, the building was on January 11, 1985 under monument protection provided. This means that the neat Kaisermühle will be preserved as a building for posterity.

gallery

Entrance area of the Kaisermühle
Part of the building from 1732
Mill pond and source from the Dorfer Bach
Beer garden of the Kaisermühle
The overshot waterwheel
Stream to the water wheel
Tranchot map 1806

Monument entry

Probably one of the mills mentioned in a document in 1246 is the Abraham or Emperor's mill. At that time there were already 11 mills in Viersen, which is characterized by brooks. The Kaisermühle was built in the headwaters of the Viers, the stream that gave the city its name. It was also one of the most powerful water mills in Viersen.

The original mill building was only made of adobe timber framework. This previous building burned down completely in 1730. As a result, the mill was rebuilt as a brick building in 1732. Only the southern gable wall facing the stream with the crooked hip still consists of half-timbering. This wall was probably covered with brickwork in 1890. Here the renewed, overshot mill wheel turns. In this area, a semicircular window and a window opening to the door next to it were expanded as part of the renovation. A footbridge over the stream leads from this door to the terrace.

The mighty, two-storey roof structure between the north and south gable wall rests on five pairs of studs at a distance of approx. 2.50 m to 3.00 m. As a result of grinding reasons - the building is lower than the dammed up mill pond - there is a grinding pit in the first southern gable compartment, which is deep in the ground. Above this is an oak stand construction that had to bear the weight of the millstones. The northern gable wall bears the year 1732 in anchor pins. The first letters of several names are carved into a ceiling beam on the ground floor: ABHAHIA HF.I. 1731.

The fact that it is a farmhouse not only in terms of the type of house and that milling was usually also associated with agriculture and modest animal husbandry can be proven from the records of 1756 and 1815. In 1801 the last prior of the disbanded Kreuzherrenkloster in Dülken , Peter Dohr, son of the miller Wilhelm Dohr, retired to the mill, which had meanwhile passed into the possession of the Dohr family in the middle of the 18th century. As a retirement home, he had a half-timbered extension built on the brook side of the building directly on the central nave with two living rooms one above the other. This small extension of the prior , which is now integrated into the restaurant as a prior room , is shown on an ink drawing from 1837.

When in 1905 Johann Heinrich Kesselburg, whose family had owned the mill since 1828, built a massive, two-story brick extension with half-timbering in historicizing Art Nouveau , components of this older side wing were included. The new, large adjoining structure has since pushed the actual mill building, which had been free-standing, into the background. An enclosure wall with a gate forms an inner courtyard towards the intersection.

The new wing of the angular building in three to one axis is glued in brick. It has gable framework and its hipped dwarf gables are decorated with round arches with wooden framework. The north elevation shows three axes, the middle of which takes up the entrance door as a projected central projection. It ends at ridge height with its own roofed gable structure, which encloses a round window. The building is structured by wide, plastered corner pilaster strips and plaster strips running horizontally between the floors. The accentuated window frames, the decorative roofing of the windows and door openings as well as the attached framework give the facade structure.

Since the middle of the last century, the grindability has steadily decreased due to lack of water. As a result, the mill building housed a first restaurant from 1877. When the waterworks in the catchment area of the Viersbach was opened on November 1, 1890, the mill pond barely reached the required water level. Presumably related to this, a few extensions and ancillary buildings as well as a garden pavilion for the restaurant were built at the end of the 19th century. The parts of the building, which have long since been demolished, have become a popular destination. In 1905, the last miller at the Kaisermühle, Johann Heinrich Kesselburg, gave up milling for good.

In the long-running border dispute (mid-13th century to mid-14th century) between Dülken and Viersen, the miller Peter to Abrahams is mentioned by name. Keyser T'Abrahams is attested as the owner of the mill from 1575 to around 1599. After him, the mill was given the additional name "Kaisermühle". After several changes of ownership, the entire mill building, including the attached Art Nouveau wing, was renovated from 1976 to 1978. The character of the building was not impaired on the inside either, despite the various necessary conversions and installations such as B. the round tower staircase in the rooms of the restaurant. The renovation also included a new roofing and renewal of the facades as well as the removal of the infills in the inner area of the restaurant.

The Abrahams or Kaisermühle is one of the most significant buildings in Alt-Viersen for the history of the town and settlement, as it clearly marks the historical continuity in terms of the topography of the settlement. The oil and grain mill located in the oldest settlement center of Viersen has no less testimony value due to the uninterrupted tradition of the miller's trade, which has been supplemented by the tradition of the restaurant trade for over 100 years and then replaced in 1905.

The property at the corner of the Kaiserstraße / Noppdorfer Straße intersection also has a defining effect on the situation thanks to the street-side gable of the extension, which is designed as an eye-catcher in Swiss country house style. Here, too, architecture becomes an expression of the zeitgeist. From the high-lying mill pond, the actual, lower-lying mill building with a rotating mill wheel reflects past times. In addition to the historicity of the house on this square, there is also the history of ownership and family that is linked to it. In the traditional genealogy of the Müller family, the social events of Viersen also unfolded, as well-known names such as Abrahams, Dohr and Kesselburg appear, the bearers of which have influenced and shaped the history of the city.

The Abrahams or Kaisermühle, in which the landscaped building barrels created from the possibilities of the 19th century are combined, is an important testimony to the history of Viersen as well as to the construction methods of the respective time of origin. Preservation and use of the Abrahams or Kaisermühle are therefore in the public interest in accordance with Section 2 (1) Monument Protection Act for scientific, in particular settlement history and settlement topographical, local history and genealogical reasons.

Viersen Monument List No. 6, entry: January 11, 1985

literature

Hans Vogt: Lower Rhine water mill guide. 2nd Edition. Verein Niederrhein, Krefeld 1998, ISBN 3-00-002906-0 , pp. 511-523.
Ferdinand Dohr: About the water being in the old Viersen. In: Heimatbuch des Kreis Kempen-Krefeld , 25th episode / 1974, pp. 47–55.
Karl L. Mackes: The Abrahams- or Kaisermühle in Viersen. In: Heimatbuch des Kreis Viersen, 29th episode / 1978, pp. 82–88.

Web links

Commons : Kaisermühle, Viersen - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Water and Soil Association of the Middle Niers /

[Wasser-_und_Bodenverband_der_mittleren_Niers-1] Water and Soil Association of the Middle Niers /