Oebelsmühle
The Oebelsmühle in Lechenich was one of the many grain mills that had been in operation in this region since ancient times . As such, it existed until 1972. After 1982, it was converted into today's private residential complex.
history
The lavishly restored, imposing building, now called "Oebels Mühle", has its origins in medieval times. It stood on a site that had long been under the rule of the Cologne Church. At the time it was first mentioned, the mill was owned by the Archbishop of Cologne , Siegfried von Westerburg , who had granted the town of Lechenich urban privileges in September 1279 .
If one takes the Niederberger Mühle for comparison , the remains of a very early grain mill, according to the latest state of knowledge ( dendrochronological examination of the wood in 2005 ), were dated to the Carolingian period (833), it seems that the Oebels Mühle could also be built very early .
Due to the relocation of the settlement formerly southwest of today's city, which from then on received additional protection through deep moats in addition to strong city walls, the archbishop's mill was at the upper end of the new city. The ditches surrounding the city were filled by the "Mühlenbach", which found its drain in the Rotbach.
Owner and lessee
Due to its location (on the upper course of the stream, as well as a counterpart to another, the "Lower Mill"), the mill was referred to in 1293 as the "Upper Mill" in Lechenich. This emerges from a register of the archbishop's income, which stated the rental income of 40 Malter rye that was valid and received for this period . The archbishop's mill was repeatedly destroyed over the centuries by war or city fire (1642, 1689, 1722), but was rebuilt again and again. Such a loss did not hit the landlord, but the respective mill leaseholder. According to the contractual agreement, it was his responsibility to carry out the reconstruction at his own expense in the event of damage. In cases of hardship, a request for a lease discount was usually granted by the landlord. In the event of exceptional accidents, the electoral court chamber gave a grant to rebuild the mill . From the 18th century onwards, the lease no longer consisted of transferred natural goods , and the mills were now leased to the highest bidder for money.
Mill operation and ban
Until 1642, only one mill leaseholder had both the upper and the lower mill for lease. After 1642 the upper mill was the only flour mill, the lower one was then operated as an oil mill . Until the end of the 18th century, tenants of the grain mill exercised their rights and duties as millers in a “compulsory mill” and processed the grain of the farmers who were subject to the Lechenich mill ban. This law of the landlord's trade ban law, introduced in 1158, forced the producers to have their grain ground exclusively in this mill. The miller kept part of the grist for his work and costs.
Rotbach, Lachenbach, Mühlenbach
The intensely agricultural area on the Erft with its tributaries is one of the very old mill landscapes in Germany. One of these tributaries, the Rotbach , which rises in the northern Eifel as "Nöthener Siefen " , gained the necessary power to drive mill wheels , fed by many smaller tributaries in the Jülich-Zülpicher Börde through which it flows . In the Lechenich area alone, starting with the Niederberger Mühle , the brook was the driving force for eight mills before it finally flowed north of Erftstadt - Dirmerzheim, after passing the Dirmerzheimer Mühle there, into the Rhine inflow, the Erft .
The upper reaches of the Rotbach had a number of weirs that were dismantled in later years. They primarily served to regulate the flow of water and to irrigate the Benden on the stream and at the same time to ward off floating debris that would have damaged a mill wheel. Today Rotbach is Dirmerzheim channel- ized. The floods that occurred almost every year up to the end of the 1980s and caused great damage can now be prevented by the rain retention basin in Niederberg.
Map displays
"Lechnich" around 1646 with the mill marked on the left of the upper gate, outside the wall
French cadastral map 1811, bottom left the mill
Streams on the Tranchot map
On the not "northed" depiction from 1646, Matthäus Merian shows the fortified city of Lechenich. On this engraving , the "Upper Mill" is drawn in front of the city wall at its southwestern end. She was represented by Merian with the large water wheel that is characteristic of undershot mills .
The names of the brooks have changed many times over the years. The map of the French geodesist Tranchot shows and describes the streams of the canton Lechenich at the beginning of the 19th century. The names can be deciphered: “Rothebach”, “Lachebach” and “Alte Bach”.
According to this map, the center of Mairie Lechenich was between "the Rothe Bach" on the west and "Die Lachenbach" on the east. The Lachenbach was named "the Old Bach" south of the village of Ahrem . Both streams came from the Eifel. From the map it can be seen that the Rothe Bach ran west from Lechenich to Konradsheim, flowed through the place and then before Dirmerzheim took up the Lachenbach flowing east of Lechenich, which is still reminiscent of the field name “Im Lacherfeld” near Dirmerzheim. The Rotbach continued to flow through Dirmerzheim and flowed into the Erft between Gymnich and Brüggen . With the stream regulation at the beginning of the 19th century, the streams at Mülheim - Wichterich were united. Between Friesheim and Ahrem, water was returned to the former Rotbach, which powered the mills. The name was changed in the later years, so that the former Alte Bach or Lachenbach is now called Rotbach, the Rothe Bach became the Lechenicher Mühlenbach. In Ahrem, the Erpa from Erp joins the Lechenich Mühlenbach. The Lechenich mill stream or ditch ends in Konradsheim and the Rotbach flows north of Dirmerzheim into the Erft. The period of secularization , in which Tranchot (and later Karl von Müffling ) produced good topographical images , also brought about major changes for the “Bannmühle” on the Lechenich moat.
secularization
In the course of secularization in 1802, the religious goods were also confiscated by consular resolution. In 1804 the mill buildings, the house, the farm buildings and a distillery for the production of brandy , which had been set up in the meantime, were sold.
19th century
The economic and industrial development in the Lechenich area was described as weak , also due to the lack of infrastructure at that time. Except for a small upper class, the people of the region lived in modest circumstances. Almost all of them, whether as owners or tenants, lived predominantly from the income generated by agriculture (which, in addition to the later employment in lignite, dominated until the early 1960s) or ran small craft businesses that enabled them to make a living. However, the majority of the population consisted of wage earners who hired themselves as maids, servants or day laborers . The millers, whose economic situation was no better at the beginning of the 19th century, also belonged to the owners or tenants.
The distillery in the town mill, which was set up in 1820, may have been the miller's failed attempt to create another line of business. However, product names of the distillation products of the mill have not been passed down.
The information on the individual mill operators is sparse. In 1820, for example, a watermill located in Lechenich, which was called the town mill, is said to have been sold or leased. One offer offered a double grinding mill, as well as an oil mill along with an apartment, a barn and stables. A distillery was also mentioned. It was suggested that everything was built in stone and surrounded by associated gardens, tree gardens, some farmland and meadows.
1827 identical in their description with the above quote was Lechenicher property of about Kaarst resident landowner Johann Mathias Decker offered for sale. It was lived in and used by Margarethe Decker, the daughter of the Deckers. The sum of 2000 thalers was quoted as the first bid.
The then following miller of the "Stadtmühle" was Benedikt Dünbier. In 1831 he made an application for the construction of a second waterwheel, which was approved by the administration. In addition to the usual services of a flour mill, he also offered agricultural products from his farm. In addition, as an innovation, he is said to have offered finely ground plaster of paris in the same year . The reason for a sale advertisement that appeared in the official gazette of the royal government in 1844 , in which the mill inventory was offered, is not known. In addition to domestic animals such as farm horses, cows and pigs, their feed such as beets and potatoes and also farm implements, a carriage and house furniture were offered for sale in this advertisement . Probably the most revealing indication of the "courtyard structure" at that time was the equipment of a distillery also offered in the same advertisement .
From the city mill to the Oebels mill
Around 1860, Theodor Oebel and his wife Kunigunde acquired the Lechenich mill property. The master miller Wilhelm Salgert, employed by the Oebel family from 1896 to 1900 as “1st miller” among other forces, provided detailed information on the mill at that time. Salgert not only described the daily mill routine in a dedicated manner, but also reported on the existing technical facilities and processes in the Oebelsmühle.
- The namesake and their property
Theodor Oebel
Oebelsmühle before 1895
Kunigunde Oebel
At the end of the 19th century, the new technology of steam power was used, probably in addition, and thus became independent of the fluctuations in the water levels of the Mühlenbach, some of which were artificially throttled, but also occurred due to the weather. In the beginning, the main driving force used was the power of the Mühlenbach stream through a large, iron water wheel with a closed ring and shovels. This was followed later by the technology developed in 1881, a horizontal 45 HP steam engine operated by a flame tube boiler , which was initially used as a reserve drive for the mill. The water wheel and steam engine could jointly drive the main drive shaft. This ran through the lower floor of the whole mill and connected the machines on the first floor with heavy, wide belts. From there, a drive shaft of the upper floor was driven in the same way and set all the necessary machines in motion with the help of a switchable gear .
This connection is explained by the description of the former work processes of the mill operation in an old correspondence between the Oebel family and the current owner of the property . In one section of the letter it says:
The mill with its equipment used to produce 150 quintals of finished goods with water and steam power, per week in day and night shifts, from 1 a.m. on Sunday to 5 a.m. on the next Sunday morning. In spring and summer it was less (hundredweight), as the water for irrigating the meadows was withdrawn from us from Sunday noon to Monday evening. We then only used steam power in urgent cases.
From this period dates the resulting residual fireplace of brick of the former left the mill facility built machine house . This mill technology was followed by a diesel drive in the further course of the last century .
Personnel, day-to-day work and technology
From the correspondence it can also be seen that the mill staff, in addition to domestic workers, consisted of a 1st and a 2nd miller (probably master and journeyman ) and an apprentice . As the mill ran day and night, the workforce had to work in shifts . In practice at the time, this meant:
The shift for the 2 millers was, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 16 hours, so during the day we were with 3 men until 4 p.m., then the one who was on the night shift went to sleep until 12 p.m. .
The grain to be ground , which was delivered in sacks by horse and cart, was hoisted to the upper floor of the mill in the mill yard with a rope hoist. The operations in the mill that began there had been partially automated by sophisticated machine technology. In addition to the normal roller mill chair , there were two porcelain chairs for particularly fine flours . A French (using quartz stones of French origin from the Jura) and a German grinding process could be carried out. From a cleaning machine with two “Trieg (ö) euren” underneath, the ground material was processed.
Historical roller or grinding chair
Mill technology
Mill technology
Bottling plant
The grains first ran over a sand sieve equipped with strong magnets , on which any iron parts were held. A wide variety of equipment was available for the following operations. The two "Triegöre" separated the thicker seeds, a screening machine separated the last residues, the necessary elevators and screw conveyors ensured that the material continued to be processed, a flour mixer with elevator sorted and directed the appropriate bagging screw. The finished product left the mill via the filling nozzle in the basement.
At that time, the mill ground grist in batches of 50 centners each in four grindings, with the bran , coarse and fine meal falling off separately with the fourth grind .
20th century
Individual occurrences
- 1913. After receiving a good certificate issued by Victor Oebel in November 1913 , the miller Ludwig Heinen, who worked for the Oebel company, left the company at his own request. As an independent miller, he took over the “Lower Mill” in Lechenich, which was then generally called “Heinensmühle”.
- 1934. In a surviving photo of that year , four people pose on the Mühlenhof, on and in front of a wagon loaded with sacks of flour. It is a horse and cart decorated with wreaths, with propaganda slogans and the emblems of National Socialism . The car, which was probably prepared to take part in a move on the occasion of the Craftsmen's Day in 1934, had painted inscriptions with the following text:
German economy in dire straits, your daily bread made from German flour .
- 1948. Soon after the Second World War , the mill was leased to the Auer company in Cologne (where Heinrich Auer built a steam mill in Cologne-Nippes in 1850 ). Due to the increased hygiene requirements , the tenant made various investments , such as a new cleaning machine and other equipment for the mill. This has now been specially designed for grinding rye meal . The diesel drive replaced a much more efficient and cleaner electrification of the system.
- 1950. The owner was still responsible for the leased buildings on the property. This is evidenced by a building cost calculation sent to the Viktor Oebel company from 1950. In this, a Blessem construction company charged costs of DM 3,145.80 for masonry work and the installation of a concrete ceiling .
Shutdown of the mill
The last miller to work at Oebelsmühle, Nikolowius, ran the Lechenich mill for the Auer company from 1960 to 1972. The harvested goods, which were delivered in large quantities and at short intervals from the "Rheinische Waren-Zentrale Lechenich" (today the area of a discount chain), were stored in grain silos for further processing. With two employees, the miller then processed an average harvest of 100 tons of rye.
This probably meant that the old mill's capacities were exhausted, and mill operations were stopped in 1972 for reasons of profitability .
After the buildings had been vacant for a few years, the family sold their traditional mill property to the city of Erftstadt in 1982. In the same year the current owner bought it.
Today's property
The idyllically situated property is on a small side street called "Auf dem Graben". The name refers to the moat of the old fortification that runs here as a section south of the Herriger city gate. The water-bearing moat is lined with plane trees to the west and rudimentary parts of the old city wall (behind which the Franciscan monastery was located until 1804 ) overgrown with bushes to the east . Behind the former mill site, the terrain changes into a landscape made up of pastures, hedges and isolated trees. The first Lechenich castle was built there.
description
The main building, which was built in the mid-19th century in its current structure and whose gable end is closed by a hipped roof , is, like the ancillary buildings on the street side of the current residential complex, nicely decorated with stucco edging . The erection of a new roof structure with corresponding roof tiles , as well as the dormer windows that were then incorporated , were commissioned by the current owner in the 1980s as part of the necessary renovations .
Rest machine house and granary
Loading dome in the roof of the main building
Inner courtyard, north and east side
Inner courtyard, west and north side
The entire complex of the property forms a square , which encloses a paved inner courtyard . The outer masonry of the building parts consists of natural, red-brown brick . The inner courtyard is mostly whitewashed. The front of the two-storey former main and residential building, which was built in an east-west direction, is adjoined by a large courtyard gate on the street side. It connects the main house to the north with the former stable building that has been converted into a residential unit . From the street to the west, this is followed by the barn, which has also been redesigned into a further residential wing, taking into account monument preservation requirements . At the rear, western side of the property, the current owner's residential wing was built in place of other former outbuildings, the rooms of which extend over several levels up to the adjoining parts of the main house. The rear part of the main house, which contains the partially preserved mill technology, has been joined by the redesigned machine house on the south garden side since the beginning of the 20th century, which was formerly supported by a chimney towering over the building . The stump of the chimney that was destroyed by lightning and parts of the machine house have been preserved. The obsolete waterwheel was sacrificed to a granary that was recently built on the southwest corner and its height ends slightly above the roof ridge of the main building .
The Oebel family, who ran the mill and farm in a generation succession, coined the name of the old town mill, which is still in use today. It will certainly be called the "Oebelsmühle" in the future too.
literature
- K. and H. Stommel: Sources on the history of the city of Erftstadt. Volume I 1990; Volume IV 1996; Volume V 1998.
- Frank Kretzschmar: Mills, buildings and hidden corners in the Rhein-Erft district . JP Bachem publishing house, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-7616-1834-4 .
- Susanne Sommer: Mills on the Lower Rhine. Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-7927-1113-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ F. Bartsch, Hanna Stommel: Lechenich from Roman times until today. P. 104.
- ↑ Petra Tutlies: A Carolingian watermill in the Rotbachtal. In: Landschaftsverband Rheinisches Amt für Bodendenkmalpflege (Hrsg.): Archeology in the Rhineland. 2005, pp. 106-108.
- ↑ Stommel, Sources: Volume I No. 178.
- ↑ Stommel, Sources: Volume IV No. 2551 and Volume V No. 2855.
- ↑ a b Stommel, Sources: Volume IV No. 2528.
- ↑ a b Stommel, Sources: Volume V No. 2855.
- ↑ Stommel, Sources: Volume IV No. 2320.
- ↑ Kottenforst-Ville Nature Park (ed.): Brühl and the Ville Lakes. Leisure map 1: 25,000, 2008.
- ↑ City map of Erftstadt. Verwaltungs-Verlag 2008.
- ↑ Main State Archives Düsseldorf, Roerdepartement Central Administration Domain Sales Arrondissement Cologne Canton Lechenich No. 17351
- ^ Susanne Sommer: Mills on the Lower Rhine . Bonn 1991, pp. 330-331 Lechenich No. 5106-17
- ^ Frank Kretzschmar: Mills, buildings and hidden corners in the Rhein-Erft district. P. 83 f.
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 47 ′ 55.5 " N , 6 ° 45 ′ 47.3" E