When we were at school, many years ago, we were taught all about the Industrial Revolution in the ealry 1800s and how Great Britain led the world in all things mechanical etc.
What we were not taught, was that some 200 years earlier one Cornelis Cornelisz fitted a crank shaft to the rotating shaft of a windmill, a saw blade to the crank journal, and thus invented the first reciprocating saw mill. On the bigger mills, several sets of blades could be operated simultaneously and at its best 80 logs of 300mm diameter and about 10m in length could be sawn into planks in one day!
He tried to sell his idea to the burgers of Amsterdam but had problems with the unions who feared for the men’s livelihoods (yes even then) so he set up north of Amsterdam in the Zaan region instead.
Within a few decades there were more than 1000 windmills in this area alone supplying the ship building industry. They were building the ships so fast that they had a stockpile of finished ones for sale. About 200 of these mills were sawmills, whilst the rest ranged from mills for grinding corn, mustard, pounding linseeds into oil, de-husking maize and coffee, peeling barley, producing dyes and so on.
So this industrial revolution led the world way before ours did, but when ours did take off the Dutch windmills began to be replaced by steam and eventually diesel and electric power.
We rode our bikes to this area where there are about a dozen mills left and some beautiful old streets of houses. We looked round the re-built sawmill and the linseed oil mill – both quite fascinating. When the centuries-old sawmill, Het Jong Scheap, looked as if it would have to be demolished in the early 1940s, a teacher, clearly a man with an abiding passion for windmills, measured and made detailed notes of every possible item in the mill. From these notes, architects’ drawings were produced so that eventually, much later in 2005, The Windmill Society of the Zaan region was able to re-build the entire mill exactly as it had been and now runs it on a daily basis with the help of volunteers. (Sadly, the man with the foresight to note the dimensions of the mill died in the 80s and never saw the result of his extraordinary feat.)
Within the complex there were workshops showcasing many of the old skills, and though it may sound a bit naff, we watched clogs being made using 100 year old machinery. A video showed how they had been made using the old hand tools. We were fascinated, although we did draw the line at buying 2 pairs of clogs! Memories of those truly dreadful Scholl sandals we both owned years ago come flooding back, though people do say that clogs are comfortable.
Anyway, it made a truly wonderful day out and has re-inspired Alex regarding owning a windmill! In fact, in view of the detailed plans which the schoolteacher drew up, he asked if the Het Jong Scheap project sold a DIY build-your-own windmill kit , but sadly, no. A missed opportunity without a doubt!
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