Wachtum is a village located in the municipality of

Coevorden Coevorden (; nds-nl, Koevern) is a city and municipality in the province of Drenthe, Netherlands. During the 1998 municipal reorganisation in the province, Coevorden merged with Dalen, Sleen, Oosterhesselen and Zweeloo, retaining its name. In Augu ...

, within the Dutch province of

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...

History

The village was first mentioned between 1381 and 1383 "to Wachtman". The etymology is unknown. Wachtum is an ''

esdorp __NOTOC__ An ''Angerdorf'' (plural: ''Angerdörfer'') is a type of village that is characterised by the houses and farmsteads being laid out around a central grassed area, the ''anger'' (from the Old High German ''angar'' =pasture or grassy place ...

'' without a church which developed in the Early Middle Ages on a sandy ridge. The village is home to a

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called windmill sail, sails or blades, specifically to mill (grinding), mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and ...

, which its villagers refer to as '' De Hoop''. Originally, it was built as a drainage mill for a

polder A polder () is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are: # Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed # Flood plains s ...

Veendam Veendam () is a town and municipality with a population of 27,752 in the province of Groningen in the northeast of the Netherlands. Veendam was established in 1648 as a peat colony by Adriaan Geerts Wildervanck. A Holland America Line cruise ship ...

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

. (Click on "Technische gegevens" to view.) In 1894 it was moved to Wachtum where the villagers began utilizing it to produce animal feed. Wachtum was home to 338 people in 1840.

References

External links

*
Official website of Wachtum
Coevorden Populated places in Drenthe {{Drenthe-geo-stub