Windmill galore

The Dutch open air museum has them in all sorts, sizes and shapes: windmills.

It also has old, older and ancient farms, cottages and houses. It protects our national heritage just like the English national trust, with some differences. It protects and maintains only regular buildings, no castles and mansions. And it relocates the best kept examples to a central location in Arnhem. A building that is selected to be in the museum is taken down brick by brick on its original location and then rebuilt using only the old and original building materials on the grounds of the museum. All buildings there are the real deal, there are no replicas.

When my grandfather from my dad’s side stopped farming and moved to a home for the elderly, his farm was thoroughly inspected and selected to be relocated to the museum. A big big deal and honour as only the best, well kept and completely original buildings are selected and even then in only extremely limited numbers. My granddads farm was a typical northern brabant’ long-facade farm built in the 1800’s and never (!) modified. I played there quite a lot as a kid and remember the smells and ancient feeling very well. During the teardown they unfortunately discovered that, although the inspection didn’t uncover it, some of the foundations of the area in the back where the animals were originally held were too far gone to be relocated and restored. So they stopped and the farm was demolished to be replaced by a completely new building that has an exterior with identical shape and size, including windows and doors, as the original. Only the interior layout was altered to modern standards. I don’t believe the current owners hold cows, chickens, pigs and the odd horse inside...

See the extras for another windmill and my job role for today: sunglass-warden