Lower iron hammer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Unterer Eisenhammer Industrial Museum

The Untere Eisenhammer is an iron hammer in the Exten district of the town of Rinteln ; it has been a protected architectural and industrial monument since 2006 . Since it was founded in 1746 by Johann Peter Kretzer, the Untere Eisenhammer has been owned by the Kretzer family. Until 2004, spades and hoes were forged here by hand by experienced blacksmiths .

history

Gear in the iron hammer

In the 14th century the "Mühlenexter" was created, which supplied the mill of the Jakobikloster and the moat of Rinteln with water. In 1477 it is mentioned in chronicles that water mills were operated as grain mills in Exten. Even in dry years, e.g. B. during the great drought of 1512, the Exter still carried enough water to drive the mill wheels.

The lower iron hammers were set up near the Ellermühle. Water was directed through the hammer pit to the mill wheels that drove the tail hammers. Spring hammers with a drop weight of up to 120 kg were used later. At first straw knives, scythes, spades and shovels were mainly made; up to 900 pieces per year.

The raw material was initially obtained from Lippoldsberg and the Bergisches Land . The coal came from Obernkirchen. In the hammers, you paid 2,100 talers for raw materials and 1,000 talers for wages. The total value of the production was about 4,800 thalers. Because such forges only existed in Exten in Lower Saxony, the steel goods produced here were sold throughout northwest Germany.

The meanwhile 7 "iron factories" in Exten employed a total of 115 workers at 36 fires. They carried the main burden of the community, which at that time had grown to 800 inhabitants and was interspersed with relatively few medium-sized and small farms. With an expenditure of 9,000 thalers for raw materials and a revenue of 25,000 thalers achieved for finished products, around 16,000 thalers remained in the village every year, half of which was wages. The companies brought more money into the village than all of the rural and manual work.

At the end of the 19th century there was more and more competition, especially from the Solingen industry, which used modern machines . In 1902 the Extenia power station was established after a turbine had been installed in place of the water wheel . The headquarters was built on the Kretzerschen Eisenhammer and from there the line was moved to the village. The plant supplied the village with light and power until the 1930s. From then on, electric motor-driven transmissions made use of spring and folding hammers as well as scissors and punches.

The last two knife factories closed around 1910, leaving only 2 iron hammers of the once flourishing Exter iron industry. The raw material now came mainly from the rolling mills from Peine and grindstones from southern Germany. Shovels, spades, axes, hatchets and garden tools were still made after that. In 1953 the last iron hammer at the upper iron hammer was dismantled and replaced by modern machines.

building

The hammer building from 1900 has been preserved unchanged. The water wheels once ran on both sides of the building. The last waterwheel was removed in 1952 and the shaft closed. In 2005 the "Association for Homeland Care and Culture Exten eV" leased the building and inventory in order to preserve the industrial monument as a museum.

The complex has been a protected monument since 2006 . In the historic iron hammer with its own power generation, pre-industrial tools and machines for forging from the time around the turn of the century are shown. The exhibition includes the completely preserved old and functional craft technology. The iron hammer can be visited.

Awards

  • November 2010 - Prize for Monument Preservation of the Lower Saxony Savings Bank Foundation in recognition of what has already been achieved in the preservation of the Unterer Eisenhammer Industrial Museum.

Documentaries

  • Spade production in the Wesertal - On the change of a traditional craft , by IWF (Göttingen) 1988, doi : 10.3203 / IWF / C-1680 , 42 minutes

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Price for monument preservation. Prize winners 2010 ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Lower Saxony Sparkasse Foundation @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nsks.de

Coordinates: 52 ° 9 '58  .4 " N , 9 ° 6' 17.4"  E