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THE WINDMILL
About 5km from our home (it is really Daphne's) is a village called Biggekerke. Population about 1000. It is a small village with a big history. In Biggekerke, on the island of Walcheren, a church already existed around 800AD and history declares that the 16
th Century Reformation had a strong influence in the region. The brick church of today with spire reaching 30 metres and bells in the belfry could tell the history better than myself.
The skyline of Biggekerke reaches high also because of the historic windmill. Its “sails” are 20 metres diameter, and while a church spire is strong and motionless the windmill sails are dynamic and strong and never fear to face the wind and swoop power from the air. It is more than likely that the tourist of 2014 will see the the Biggekirke sails spinning because this windmill is a working mill. If windmills could speak they would sing the praise of their ancient sister in this old village. The date board just below the hub of the sails reads “Anno 1712.”
I believe that most windmills in Holland were used for pumping water. The Rhine River delta is where the
Dutch have made their home and so their survival has meant that they have always battled with floods from the river and with surges from the North Sea storms. The main weapon of the land owner has been the dike – an elongated mound of earth which is made to surround the areas where houses and farms and even villages and towns etc to keep the marauding waters at bay. Some spaces are even below sea level and so dikes will always leak vast quantities and require to be pumped back to the sea. Hence we have windmills in Holland. Not so many now, since electric power is more efficient and convenient and reliable than wind power.
But windmills were also for grinding wheat – making flour. Every village in earlier times probably had a windmill and a church. A flour miller and a priest. Biggekirke still has both. But all have electric power now and so working windmills are rare.
I am fascinated by windmills and since this one was visible and just 6km distant from Daphne's village, and since I had Hans bike at my disposal, I purposed to visit Biggekirke. I felt like I was
high and lifted up on the seat of Hans bike. The bikes of Holland are like this. High handlebars and big frames (quite unlike my racing bike in NZ). Hans had three gears and a bell and a foot brake. I rode the bikeway and I imagined that it would be more or less direct between villages. But, there are many bikeways and they are often through forests and groups of trees and one's destination is certainly not visible all the way along the route. There are bikeways, hiking tracks, horse tracks and farm tracks. The bikeways are marvellous. There are more of them than there are roads in Holland. They are sealed and they are scenic and they are mapped and catalogued and numbered and named. The locals would know them all intimately. But this Kiwi got lost, because Biggekirke was not signposted on the track I chose first. Never mind. I was not really lost. I just did'nt know where I was going. But it didn't matter, it was all lovely and it was no imposition to travel 12 km instead of 6 km. I visited the windmill several times and “got lost” each time and on a
Wood Gears of the Windmill
The gear on the left is spinning so fast the photo is blurred different route each time.
The windmill is on a lane leading east out of the village. Beyond are fields and more villages spaced about 4 or 5km between. Some have churches but none have working windmills.
Michele Dellebeke, the current mill operator was bent over his white bags of flour in the doorway of the mill where he has to stoop to pass through the 400mm thick wall. He is a tall man of about 30 to 35 (and ever since he was 10 years old he has been working windmills). The glasses he wears are a handicap in the dusty environment, and his overalls and his hair are dusty. He travels more than an hour to work, and he is as friendly a dusty miller as you will find anywhere in the world. And he speaks fluent English. His work is also his hobby since he too is fascinated by and revels in these machines he knows so well.
Michele observed my more than casual interest in his workplace and I can read his lips on my video as he spoke
“Would you like to go up?” What an invitation. My clothes became dusted (and
my hair and my skin and my nostrils) as I climbed the steep ladders into the circular windmill “house” tightly packed with wooden gears and shafts and flat belts and chutes and trapdoors and bags. Michele called out
“be careful” and I was. One might be tempted to say
“Health and Safety eat your heart out,” but it really was quite a dangerous situation. If he had realised that I was 77 then he may have been a bit more reserved. But I'm glad he was not. The windows allowed plenty of daylighting within. I could have just sat and enjoyed this totally new experience for half an hour. Just to see the wooden main shaft with wooden gear teeth spinning and passing the wind power on through wood dowelled spur gears and then to wood pulleys with flat belts, and all happening within a metre of me, and the ladder hole in the dusty floor right in front of me, and the window with sunbeams streaming in, and the rhythmic shadow of massive trellised blades sweeping past the window more than once per second...... Whew! I thought that it was a good place for a 9 year old boy to sit a while in awe of it all with his grandfather.
On that day, the breeze that silently blew in from the north sea just 2 km away, and that part of it that caught the sail of the windmill at Biggekirke – that unseen force that drove the sails anticlockwise and ground hard wheat kernels into dust as it passed – all happening while I was inside the windmill, actually turned something inside of me.
I cannot adequately write my feelings of the time. They remain within. It was an amazing experience. Thank you Michele.
I would like to know more about the mechanics and logistics of the windmill at Biggekirke and Michele has agreed to correspond by email to this end. And I wonder if this spot in the Netherlands might become a spot which our descendants might visit too because I came on this day in May 2014.
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