For over two millenia the dutch have been fighting against floods and reclaiming land from the sea. The sea has been driven back, but at what cost? Countless lives and homes have been lost to the sea and the rivers. The Dutch know that every square meter of soil came at a high cost, yet giving up is simply not an option.
We know how the Dutch keep the waters at bay nowadays, but how did this endless battle begin? It started with a terp (or wierde) this is an artificial hill, made to create a safe haven at high tide. The first terps were built around 500BC and ended with the coming of the dike somewhere around 1200. A dike is an artificial earthen wall, constructed as a defense or as a boundary. The best known form of dike is a construction built along the edge of a body of water, to prevent it from flooding onto an adjacent lowland. Dikes are mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough and along 
rivers for protection against high floods, along lakes or polders. Dikes have also been built for the purpose of empoldering. A polder is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. Some need drainage by pumps to prevent the water table within it from rising too high. Some can be drained by opening sluices at low tide or pumping mills (windmills). In Europe windmills were developed in the middle ages. The earliest mills were probably grinding mills. They were mounted on city walls and could not be turned into the wind. With further development 
mills became versatile in windy regions for all kinds of industry, most notably grain grinding mills, sawmills, threshing and pumping mills. The pumping mills allowed the drainage of the Dutch wetlands, to claim new land (polders), by continuously pumping water to the rivers, land below sea level could be created. To claim ever more land it became necessary to build a series of mills (molengang, mill pace). Each mill pumps water into a higher reservoir, with the last mill pumping it out to the river. In the 18th century several molendriegangen (3 mills) and molenviergangen (4 mills) were built, the largest preserved mill pace in kinderdijk was awarded world heritage status in 1997. Gary and I paid a visit there and visited some of the working mills and saw them in action.
We know how the Dutch keep the waters at bay nowadays, but how did this endless battle begin? It started with a terp (or wierde) this is an artificial hill, made to create a safe haven at high tide. The first terps were built around 500BC and ended with the coming of the dike somewhere around 1200. A dike is an artificial earthen wall, constructed as a defense or as a boundary. The best known form of dike is a construction built along the edge of a body of water, to prevent it from flooding onto an adjacent lowland. Dikes are mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough and along rivers for protection against high floods, along lakes or polders. Dikes have also been built for the purpose of empoldering. A polder is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. Some need drainage by pumps to prevent the water table within it from rising too high. Some can be drained by opening sluices at low tide or pumping mills (windmills). In Europe windmills were developed in the middle ages. The earliest mills were probably grinding mills. They were mounted on city walls and could not be turned into the wind. With further development mills became versatile in windy regions for all kinds of industry, most notably grain grinding mills, sawmills, threshing and pumping mills. The pumping mills allowed the drainage of the Dutch wetlands, to claim new land (polders), by continuously pumping water to the rivers, land below sea level could be created. To claim ever more land it became necessary to build a series of mills (molengang, mill pace). Each mill pumps water into a higher reservoir, with the last mill pumping it out to the river. In the 18th century several molendriegangen (3 mills) and molenviergangen (4 mills) were built, the largest preserved mill pace in kinderdijk was awarded world heritage status in 1997. Gary and I paid a visit there and visited some of the working mills and saw them in action.
Leuke site heb je er van gemaakt. Kan ik ook de dingen lezen die er in nederland zijn. Nu nog reizen door de wereld en in de toekomst met de fiets en een landkaart op het stuur door nederland fietsen.
ReplyDeleteGroetjes Rob en Coby