Zaanse Schans - A Dutch Living History Village and its Windmills

You can’t visit Amsterdam and not take at least one day-trip to see its historic windmills.  Since we were limited in time, we decided to visit the museum-village of Zaanse Schans.  It was a short and direct train trip from the main train station in Amsterdam and from what we had read; the lovely living history village was filled with historic windmills.

Picturesque Zaanse Schans is part of the town of Zaandam and was created in 1960 as a tribute to the ingenuity of the 18th and 19th century and as a museum, providing a glimpse into the Zaan region’s heyday and its traditional Dutch way of life.

Beautiful houses were built as homes to rich windmill owners, traders and dignitaries. Many of these houses have decorative façades at the front and back as status symbols.  The houses were located on the dike along the river Zaan, a very important thoroughfare from the 17th to 19th centuries.

Those who could afford it also had additional gardens close to the house, but separated from it by a road or by water. The gardens were used for growing vegetables or flowers or for bleaching cloth.

The exteriors of the houses displayed rich shades of various greens ranging through to beige and light blue. The houses also featured brightly-colored interiors.  These features are characteristic of the Zaan region.

Zaanse Schans derives its name from the Dutch word “sconce” which is an earthwork (a war fortification built from earth) used during the Eighty Years’ War (the Dutch revolt against Spain). It is believed that there were 13 of these sconces in the Zaan region in the 17th century. Right next to the museum village of Zaanse Schans, on the other side of the through road, was the earthwork of Kalver-Schans, built in 1574. It was the largest in the region and the only one never to have been conquered by the Spaniards.

The area would undergo great change after the invention of the crankshaft by Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1594. The crankshaft made it possible to convert the horizontal wind direction on the windmill sails into a vertical movement, allowing for grinding and sawing movements inside the mill.

Thanks to the explosion of international trade during the Dutch Golden Age (17th century), the Zaanse Schans region’s location, on the water and in close proximity to Amsterdam, grew into one of Europe’s oldest industrial regions, with over 600 working windmills. It was also a center for ship-building. As many as 26 shipyards launched between 100 and 150 ships every year.

The local population developed different types of industrial windmills, capable of producing wood sawn by machine, paper, ground spices, oil for food and paint pigments, fabrics, flour, cocoa powder and anything else that could be processed in a mill. These developments brought great prosperity to the region, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Today, historic shops, cottages, windmills, houses and buildings from all over the Zaan region have been relocated to the village to create this living history museum where the local people live and work in age-old Dutch occupations.

Six preserved historic windmills were relocated to Zaanse Schans and others were re-built from original blueprints.  They alternate hours and days, so Jim and I were lucky to visit three really interesting windmills: The Oil Mill, The Saw Mill and the Paint Mill.

The Oil Mill which is called De Bonte Hen (The Brightly Colored Hen) was originally built in Oost-Zaadam in 1693 and is what is called a “Smock Mill”. Smock Mills get their name from their shape which looks like a peasant smock.  The top portion turns separately with its sails.  Unfortunately it experienced two devastating fires and long neglect and by 1973 was desperately in need of saving.  It was purchased by the windmill society De Zaansche Molen (Mills of the Zaan) and restored over five years to working order.  Today, the mill is operated by volunteer millers and produces vegetable oils such as linseed oil.

The colossal millstones roll over the oil-bearing seeds or nuts crushing them under the great weight of the stone wheels.  Because they roll on their sides (edges), they are called edge runner stones.  Wooden guides keep the seeds and nuts from being pushed off to the side.  The stone wheels themselves are usually painted with blue and white patterns as a safety measure, so that even in the dark of night, the mill workers could see if the stones were turning.

When the seeds and nuts were pulverized, the ground seed/nut was heated up on a stone stove fueled by wood, peat or briquettes.  This stove was also used by the workers to heat their tea.  A museum display portraying the artifacts from the daily lives of the oil millers includes several of these antique tea-kettles.

The heated mass of seed was then put into woolen bags.  The bags were then put into a protective covering of horsehair and leather and placed into the oil press to extract all the oil.  This process left a thick cake of pressed meal which was used as cattle fodder in historic times.

Having read about and viewed the oil pressing processes in Greece and Italy, it was really interesting to see this Dutch pressing technique.

The Saw Mill is a “Cap Winder Mill” called Het Jonge Schaap.  The Cap Winder Mill gets its name from the fact that the mill has a cap-like portion on the top. 

The original mill located in Zaandam, was destroyed in 1942, but using detailed drawings from the original mill, an exact copy of the mill was constructed in Zaanse Schans in 2007.  The mill is a Beam Mill and is used for sawing crude beams and planks for building rather than fine wainscoting used for decorative paneling.

High up in the mill, the gear wheels converted the wind power into usable energy for the mechanisms.

Tree trunk and beams were hoisted into the saw-sled which then dragged the log through the saw frames.  The frames would rise and fall as they sawed the tree trunks and beams.  The ratchet wheel moved the saw-sleds forward little by little as the log progressed through the saw frames.

I have to admit, it made me a little nervous to be so close to the saw blades even though I knew I was perfectly safe where I was standing!  Even so, it was fascinating to see.

The last mill we visited was The Paint Mill called De Kat.  The mill was originally built on the Kalverringdijk between 1646 and 1696, but was devastated by fire and rebuilt in 1782.  Due to later replacement projects and the fact that the mill needed to be moved from the growing city of Zaandam, the old top of a paint mill called De Duinjager was placed on the old shed base of De Kat and the composite mill was added to the Zaanse Schans collection. 

The mill grinds raw material for paint pigments.  Barrels throughout the warehouse hold the processed pigments and the day we were there it was grinding chalk.

We were able to climb up to the top of this mill to get an up-close look and the huge grinding gears and the tall sails and view was incredible!

The caps of both the Smock Mills and the Cap Winder Mills and their sails can be turned by the miller to face the wind.  We were lucky to see this process in action!

Be sure to visit the Zaans Museum.  The museum contains living cultural heritage and region-related collections displaying regional dress, painted furniture and utensils found in Zaandam homes.  The industrial heritage displays include the corporate collection of the Verkade family, founders of Verkade; a company famous for its cookies and chocolate.

And don’t forget to stop into the huge gift-shop! 

Zaanse Schans is a fun day-trip from Amsterdam.  We highly recommend a visit and it’s a wonderful place for kids (of all ages, ha ha!) to explore and learn about the history of the iconic Windmills of the Netherlands! 

Information for this post supplied by: Wikipedia, The Windmill Society Pamphlets, dezaanseschans.nl website