The Batt Visits the Kat
The windmill is one of those rare romantic pieces of machinery in my mind. As a child we spent long car journeys in Australia counting their angular bodies. We fondly called them ‘roundies’. They were familiar friends, their groaning and squeaking part of our everyday sound scape as they pumped the water from the house tank to the water troughs in the paddocks.
The Netherlands is synonymous with windmills. While visiting the Netherlands I was lucky enough to visit the Zaansche Schans in Zaandam, which is just north of Amsterdam. This area of the river Zaan is the oldest industrial area in the world. Windmills were first built in this area in the 1600’s to help drain the water sodden land. However in a matter of years they were being used in the manufacturing and processing of barley, rice, paper, wood, mustard, cooking oil, tobacco and hemp. At the height of industry, one thousand windmills lined the banks of the Zaan. In 1850 the coal consuming steam engines replaced the windmill and the air was no longer filled with the great turning sails but by gritty grey smog.
By 1920 there were only fifty windmills left. De Zaansche Molen – the windmill society was formed to preserve the remaining windmills – the pictured windmill ‘The Kat’ being one of these. The Kat is probably the last wind powered dye mill in the world. Dyes are created by crushing plants and minerals using the huge millstones.
It’s a mill that uses the wind to create rainbows – now that’s magic!
