Schulze Westerath watermill

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Schulze Westerath watermill

The Schulze Westerather Mühle in the Stevertal

The Schulze Westerather Mühle in the Stever valley

Location and history
Watermill Schulze Westerath (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Schulze Westerath watermill
Coordinates 51 ° 56 '31 "  N , 7 ° 23' 7"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 56 '31 "  N , 7 ° 23' 7"  E
Location Stevern 37, 48301 Nottuln ,
NRW , Germany
Waters Stever ( GWK 2788)
Built 1490 ± 10 years
Shut down 1974
Status Functional museum mill.
technology
use Grain and grist mill
Grinder Two meals
drive Watermill
water wheel Francis turbine
Website Stevertal watermill .

The Schulze Westerather Mühle is a water mill on the upper reaches of the Stever in Stevern near Nottuln . It was extensively restored between 2006 and 2014 and is now a fully functional museum mill. It is not driven conventionally by a water wheel , but by a Francis turbine installed in 1928 .

history

The Westerather Mühle is a rural stone works in the Münsterland region of an old main courtyard , first mentioned in 1296 , which was sold six years later to Nottuln Abbey , which was then an Augustinian monastery . From 1360 the farm was given different variations of the name Schulze Stevermann . At the latest with the damming of the mill ponds, the property assumed the character of a typical Munsterland courtyard . The former gatehouse is located opposite the mill on the other side of today's courtyard entrance.

Window with spout

The watermill, formerly also called Stevermanns Mühle , is the oldest of the structures on this farmstead that have survived today and at the same time the only one that dates back to the late Middle Ages . Dendrochronological studies show that it was created around 1490. The upper floors made of Baumberger sandstone rest on a basement made of solid rubble stones. The building was originally not built as a mill, but as a residential building, as evidenced by the fireplace and the wall niche with a sink on the representative residential floor above the grinding floor. The three-storey structure with external dimensions of 10.46 by 11.27 meters is much too big in relation to the mill technology installed in it. The upwardly tapering massive outer walls in double-shell design are between 90 cm and 1.24 meters thick in the basement. The conversion to a mill, the construction of the reservoirs and the redesign of the property to the Gruppenhof may go hand in hand with the new construction of the main house. This dates from before 1581, it may also have been built a few decades earlier. The construction of the reservoirs was very complex due to the hillside location. Thick sheet pile walls had to be built towards the mill to absorb the water pressure. It was not possible to determine whether the ponds were sealed at the bottom by further measures.

From the first known mention as a mill in 1600, it can be safely concluded that the conversion to a water mill must have taken place in 1599 at the latest. The brick cladding of the wall behind the waterwheels is likely to date from this time, as the Baumberger sandstone is representative of a residential building, but begins to dissolve in a relatively short time under constant splashing water.

The existence of a former oil mill on the opposite bank of the Stever is documented as early as 1599 . The solid foundation walls of this much smaller secondary mill have been preserved to this day. The former, now closed wall hole for the drive shaft coming from the wheel can still be seen well in the water-side foundations. The Westerath plant was originally a typical double mill , as it has been and is still in many places in the Münsterland. It is unknown whether and how long the half-timbered building above it actually served as a mill. While the existence of the oil mill is still documented for 1859, only the shed in its place was mentioned in 1922. As a result, the oil mill must have stopped operating at some point between these years.

The grain mill that still exists today had two glindens (grinding tunnels) in 1599, each driven by a water wheel. The first renovation took place in 1666; here the ground-level door to the gear cellar was inserted into the side facing today's courtyard entrance. Presumably another, smaller-sized passage had already been located here, because it seems hard to imagine that the delivery and delivery of the goods took place via the high access to the living room level. Further changes to the building took place in the 18th century. In 1737 the roof was completely renovated and in the upper part new gable walls were put in under the crooked hip. The old chimney was replaced by a new chimney and a new layer of beams closed the higher of the residential floors from above.

In the second half of the 19th century, the mill technology was fundamentally brought into shape. In 1859, permission was given to connect a third grinding gear to one of the two water wheels using a vertical shaft and spur gear . The area between the grain mill and the oil mill, which was still in existence at the time, was enclosed in order to effectively counter the icing of the wheels in winter. This technique lasted until the 1920s.

Mill technology in the basement

The last major technical reconstruction was carried out in 1928. A Francis turbine was purchased for the drive , which was manufactured in the Carl Bünte machine factory in Bramsche. It was designed for an output of up to 28 hp with a water throughput of 480 l / min and replaced the two water wheels. The actual mill technology inside the building also had to be completely replaced, as it was not compatible with the high speeds of the new drive type. So now two glindens, consisting of the meal and flour course, were set up one behind the other along the turbine shaft, while the previous grinding courses were set up on the wall facing the water wheels. With the installation of the new technology, the mill was initially state of the art. With the increasing electrification after the Second World War, however, it also lost its economic importance for agricultural operations. In 1974 it was finally shut down. In 1983 the turbine was reactivated in order to convert the energy it generated into thermal heat using an eddy current brake . Since there was no resounding success, the experiments were discontinued after a few months.

Reconstruction in accordance with historical monuments and current use

As a late medieval residential building converted into a milling business, the Schulze Westerath watermill stands out and is one of the most important facilities of its kind in Westphalia. The layout of the elongated mill pond and the surrounding flood, which despite the hillside location of the Schulzenhof, turned the Schulzenhof into a Westphalian farmyard, are of particular importance. This makes the mill unique in the Münsterland. It was entered on January 30, 1990 on the Nottuln List of Monuments .

The aging building has recently increasingly had to struggle with static problems. In the southwest wall in particular, cracks and displacements became apparent after moisture had penetrated the masonry through the ailing roof and the frost was able to develop its explosive effect. The damage was so extensive that the mill construction slowly got into difficulties. The renovation effort required enormous financial resources and raised the question of the future use of the building. Due to its location in the Stevertal, which is comparatively heavily frequented by tourists, the repair and opening of the mill to the public was an obvious option. In 2006 the sponsorship group Wassermühle Schulze Westerath e. V. was launched as the project sponsor, who has been able to raise more than half a million euros to date for the renovation of the building in accordance with the historic monuments and the maintenance of the mill technology in it from public funds and private donations. On May 23, 2014, the mill was opened to the public for the first time with a ceremony. It is planned to make the premises - especially the representative fireplace room on the former upper floor - available for exhibitions and cultural purposes. There is also talk of using it as a wedding room for the Nottulner registry office.

The vest Rather mill was from the cultural services FO monuments, landscape and building culture in Westphalia to Monument of the Month in February 2015 proclaimed.

The building can be visited by appointment. There are no fixed opening times.

  • View from the driveway

  • Living floor with fireplace

  • Up and down stairs on the living room level

Trivia

The Schulze West Rather mill served the director Dominik Graf for the historical film The vow to life in Coesfeld born -Flamschen and in Dülmen died Anne Catherine Emmerich as a backdrop.

literature

  • Peter Petersen: The Schulze Westerath watermill in Nottuln-Stevern . In: Kreisheimatverein Coesfeld eV, working group for history and archives (ed.): History sheets of the district Coesfeld . Our Circle - History and Events 2012. Issue 37, 2013, ISSN  0723-2098 , p. 101-156 .
  • Peter Petersen: The rural stone works Schulze Steveren in Nottuln-Steveren . In: Wartburg Society for Research into Castles and Palaces eV (Hrsg.): Research into castles and palaces . Book 17, The Castle in the Plain . Petersberg 2016, p. 60-78 .

Web links

Commons : Wassermühle Schulze Westerath  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References, footnotes and sources

  1. ^ Peter Petersen, Office for Building History and Monument Preservation: Press releases
  2. ↑ Inconsistent with this, Alois Schwarz, according to which it is a question of an upper court named pagus stirnufeldi , first mentioned in 889 , cf. Alois Schwarz, Bernhard Fritsche: Old mills in the Münsterland . 2nd revised and expanded edition. Aschendorff, Münster 1991, ISBN 3-402-05265-2 , p. 104 .
  3. ↑ Mühlenchronik on the website of the friends' association
  4. ↑ Peter Petersen in Westfälische Nachrichten of May 10, 2014: Older than thought
  5. ↑ The inscription "Anno 1666" above the door marks the year the door was installed, not the age of the building.
  6. ↑ An important water mill in Westphalia will be turning again soon! (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: Jahresblick 2008. District government Münster, January 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 7, 2014 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bezreg-muenster.de
  7. ↑ Westfälische Nachrichten of October 9, 2007: EU funds for the mill?
  8. ↑ a b Ralf J. Günther: The mill and the track of the stones. (PDF) In: Foundation magazine. NRW Foundation, January 2014, pp. 20f , accessed on December 7, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung of May 20, 2014: Late medieval jewel
  10. ↑ The German Foundation for Monument Protection alone provided a total of 210,000 euros in several tranches from 2007 to 2011 . From the 2008 monument funding program of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, 35,000 euros flowed ( Memento from October 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  11. ↑ Ludger Warnke in Westfälische Nachrichten of May 23, 2014: A real rarity , ceremony for the opening of the Schulze Westerath watermill
  12. ^ Westfälische Nachrichten of April 6, 2011: The mill is grinding again
  13. ↑ Website of the cultural service LWL monument preservation, landscape and building culture in Westphalia : Monument of the month February 2015 ( Memento from April 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Unless otherwise noted, this detailed source serves as the basis of the article.