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Published: July 27th 2019
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Visiting family in the morning is a sure recipe for excellent coffee and rich desserts. A visit with Johan and Carlos in Den Bosch was no different. I had not seen my cousin Johan since he visited us when he was a 12-year old boy, he’s 51 now. We had seen a lot from him and Carlos in Facebook, since they are avid travelers, and it was sure nice to meet up. Marion could not get over their neighbourhood, being near a small canal that runs along people’s backyards filled with a variety of flowers, and kept spotlessly maintained of course.
I had visited the Kilsdonkse Molen near Veghel in 2015 and wanted to make sure Marion got to see it. It’s the only operating wind and water mill in the Netherlands and maybe anywhere, and also the only one that produces flour and oil at the same facility. While the mill has gone through several lives, records mention the existence of a mill at this site in the early 1200’s. Funny story about the nobility that ruled the lowlands in early Middle Ages. They owned the land that this mill and others operated on and made millers pay a
fee for the air and the water that drove these mills. It wasn’t until Napoleon conquered the area that these fees were stopped, because according to him (smart man) nobody owned air or water and should therefore not charge for it. Sounds like the early Dutch also knew about socialism and taxes!
Now that I’m talking about the mill, another little tidbit. The Netherlands are a pretty flat country, so in order to use water power for things like driving a water mill, one needs to create a change in water level. This was done by damming the small rivers thus flooding upstream areas. But if you can imagine that there were as many as 15 of these enterprising millers here, you can understand that others would be affected by such flooding, including several towns and many vegetable gardens, even some belonging to the rich. Needless to say that many of the mills were shut down, one way or another.
We had a great lunch at the restaurant there. I had some locally brewed abbey beer from Abdij van Berne, the oldest Dutch abbey still operating that started in 1134 AD. Interestingly, Van Berne is my mother’s maiden
name. That name originated as Verberne in this area and both versions are now prevalent all over the Netherlands. My brother Hans is our expert in these matters and may correct or expand upon this for me.
Nearby Kasteel Heeswijk at one time owned the Kilsdonkse Molen and could afford to pay air and water fees. But once these were eliminated, they could no longer compete with the run of the mill operators (pun intended) and they sold it to private interests. All that to say that a visit to the Castle would be required. We did try but got there too close to closing time. We got some pictures but a closer examination will have to wait for another day.
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