TYPICAL DUTCH GIFTS

Windmills

Authentic Dutch handmade art gifts for your relations

The Dutch windmill

A windmill or in Dutch, just mill is a structure that converts energy produced by wind into rotational energy. Windmills use vanes called sails or blades to capture the wind and make the vanes rotate. In a far past, windmills were used to grind grain for the vast bread demand. Windmills were also used to pump water, or both.

Making the polder

The windwheel invented by the Greek engineer Heron of Alexandria was the first windmill/device that converted energy into wind using rotational force. The windwheel was first made to power an organ.

Nowadays, Holland is world-famous for its windmills. The first windmill was build in 1180 in Limburg. The oldest existing windmill in Holland , the Doesburger mill, is located in Ede.

During the Dutch golden age which took place in the period 1602-1700, the famous Zaanstreek was an enormous industrial windmill-area. Thousands of sawing mills processed Scandinavian wood for the shipbuilding industry and for the paper industry. The mills were also used for dry grind and pumping out the water to create the famous polders in Holland. The Dutch used the mills for milling grain and line seed to produce paint-oil, which was a big industry at that time.

Windmills

ancient Dutch

Kinderdijk

Kinderdijk is a village in south-holland, the southern province of the Hollands. The windmills is Kinderdijk are UNESCO heritage and a must see for tourists coming to Holland. Did you know that Kinderdijk was the first village that had electricity?