Batenburg Windmill is a post mill in

Batenburg Batenburg is a city in the municipality of Wijchen, in the Dutch province of Gelderland. It is located on the Meuse, about 15 km west of Nijmegen. It is well known for the remains of a medieval fort in the center of the town. Batenburg receive ...

Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

which was built in the 18th century and is under repair as of February 2014. The mill is listed as a

Rijksmonument A rijksmonument (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands ...

History

The first mill on this site was built in 1531. It belonged to the

Batenburg Castle Batenburg Castle (Kasteel Batenburg in Dutch) is located in the village of Batenburg, in the Gelderland province in the Netherlands. Construction is thought to have started on the castle in 1300. The castle is located on the northern edge of the v ...

. It was compulsory for the local farmers to take their grain to the mill to be ground. The mill was built in the 18th century. Batenburg Castle was burnt down by the French in 1795 during the

War of the First Coalition The War of the First Coalition (french: Guerre de la Première Coalition) was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the Kingdom of France (1791-92), constitutional Kingdom of France and then t ...

and the records of the mill were lost. Major repairs were carried out in 1913. Owned by Viktor Adolf, Prince of Benheim-Steinfurth when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

took place, the castle and its estate were seized by the Dutch Government following the German surrender at the

end of World War II in Europe The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf H ...

. Ownership was transferred to the Stichting Vrienden Gelderse Kasteelen in 1953. The mill was sold in 1957 to its former tenant, H. Th. Verploegen, who restored the mill in 1960. The mill was sold to Mhr. Van der Steen in 1970, and was transferred on 18 April 1973 to the Vereniging De Hollandsche Molen. Further restorations took place in 1977 and 1996. In 2011, the mill was stopped due to a crack in the wooden windshaft. The windshaft was removed in February 2014 pending a decision on repair or replacement. The mill is listed as a

, № 8719.

Description

The mill is what the Dutch describe as a "Standerdmolen". It is a post mill with a single storey octagonal roundhouse. The roof of the buck is

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

. The mill is winded by tailpole and winch. The sails are

Common sails Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

. One pair has a span of , the other pair span . The sails are carried on a wooden ''windshaft''. The ''windshaft'' also carries the ''head wheel'' which has 68 teeth and the ''tail wheel'' which has 67 teeth. These gears each drive a pair of diameter French Burr

millstone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

s via ''lantern pinion stone nuts'', which have 13 staves each.

Public access

The mill is open on Wednesdays 13:30-17:00, or by appointment.

References

{{Dutch Windmills Industrial buildings completed in the 18th century Windmills in Gelderland Post mills in the Netherlands Grinding mills in the Netherlands Agricultural buildings in the Netherlands Rijksmonuments in Gelderland