Lille Mølle (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

: Little Mill) is a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that is preserved as a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a variety of ...

in the

Christianshavn Christianshavn () is a neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Denmark. Part of the Indre By District, it is located on several artificial islands between the islands of Zealand and Amager and separated from the rest of the city centre by the Inner Harbour, ...

neighbourhood of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. It was the last windmill on the old ramparts of Christianshavn. It is a Dutch

smock mill The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded, thatched, or shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This t ...

erected in 1783 on one of the bastions, replacing a

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single central vertical post. The vertical post is supported by four quarter bars. These ar ...

built in 1669. It was turned into a private home in 1916. Until 2016, the Little Mill was open to visitors on limited opening hours. Everything was left exactly as it stood when the house was still lived in. The home was at the same time highly eclectic and typical of its period. The

National Museum A national museum can be a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In the United States, most nati ...

closed this historic house museum in 2016.Little Mill closes
(in Danish) Berlingske, 28 November 2016, retrieved 2018-05-11.

History

The first windmill

The first windmill on the site was a

built in 1669. It was one of numerous windmills which were constructed on Copenhagen's Bastioned Fortifications. The only other of these to survive today is the windmill at the Kastellet fortress. In the event of

siege A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

, a fortified city needed secure supplies, including supplies of

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

and rolled groats. In the same time, a location on the bastions provided favourable wind conditions.

The second windmill

The old windmill was replaced by a Dutch

erected in 1783. In 1832 the complex was expanded with a four-story steam mill. Together the two mills acted as a grain mill, supplying the citizens of Copenhagen with flour. At the end of the 19th century the mill cap was disassembled and for a while the mill was used by the military for storing

straw Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry wikt:stalk, stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the crop yield, yield by weight of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, ry ...

needed for some nearby

barracks Barracks are buildings used to accommodate military personnel and quasi-military personnel such as police. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word 'soldier's tent', but today barracks ar ...

, both as

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food ...

for the horses and bedding for the soldiers whose mattresses needed an occasional refill. In 1909 the steam mill was put out of operation.

Conversion into a home

In 1916, Little Mill was acquired by Ejnar Flach-Bundegaard, a young engineer, who turned it into the private home of himself and his wife as well as a small factory, ''DIAF - Dansk Instrument og apparatfabrik'' (English: Danish Instrument and Device Factory). Mr. and Mrs. Flach-Bundegaard made their highly eclectic home in the five storey octagonal mill base. The factory was located in the steam mill and a warehouse that has now been demolished on the other side of Christianshavn Voldgade.

The museum today

Ejnar Flach-Bundegaard died in 1949 and his widow in 1974. Shortly before her death, she donated Little Mill to the

Danish National Museum The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøget ...

, and today everything stands exactly as it did when the couple were alive. Despite not being a typical home, Little Mill is in some ways characteristic of its period, being furnished in a

national romantic Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...

yet uniquely personal style.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lille Molle Grinding mills in Denmark Listed agricultural buildings in Copenhagen Listed buildings and structures in Christianshavn Listed industrial buildings in Copenhagen Listed residential buildings in Copenhagen Listed windmills in Denmark Octagonal buildings in Denmark Smock mills in Denmark Buildings and structures completed in 1783 Windmills completed in the 18th century