Qualla: Miedenmolen, Holwerd

Miedenmolen, Holwerd: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heydra (Fotograaf), CC BY-SA 4.0. Most polder mills move a modest amount of water. The Miedenmolen, on the salt-marsh edge of Holwerd just inland of the Wadden Sea, moves a lot. Each revolution of its Archimedes' screw lifts 1,667 litres - roughly six times what its smaller cousin De Steenhuistermolen down the coast can manage, and almost an order of magnitude more than the smallest grondzeilers in the region. The screw is 1.70 metres across and nearly six metres long. The mill that drives it has been doing the job, off and on, since 1855.

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Image: Heydra (Fotograaf) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Miedenmolen, Holwerd: Made for the Dwergsmear

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taks, Public domain. The Dwergsmear Polder sits behind the sea dikes of the northern Frisian coast, in country so low and so wet that without active pumping it would simply revert to marsh. The mill was built in 1855 to drain it. Like De Steenhuistermolen, the Miedenmolen is a grondzeiler - sails rea...

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Image: Taks | Public domain

Miedenmolen, Holwerd: Patent Sails and a Foundry in Groningen

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wauteurz, CC BY-SA 4.0. What separates the Miedenmolen mechanically from the older polder mills is its sail system. The four Patent sails, span 20.80 metres, use hinged shutters that the miller can adjust without climbing out into the wind - a technology that dramatically extended the usable hours of an...

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Image: Wauteurz | CC BY-SA 4.0

Miedenmolen, Holwerd: A Polder Mill in the Electric Age

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Terpstra, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1953 the regional water board had decided the mill should be fully mechanised - electric pumps were doing most polder drainage by then, and a wind-driven mill was hard to justify on pure economic terms. Meetings on 27 December 1961 and 13 March 1962 worked out a compromise: an...

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Image: Frank Terpstra | CC BY-SA 4.0

Miedenmolen, Holwerd: Thijs Jellema and a New Screw

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Aiko assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Two further restorations followed: one in 1978 and another in 1994. The 1994 work was carried out by the millwright Thijs Jellema of Birdaard - the neighbouring village known today as Burdaard - a name that reaches across more than a century of Frisian mill craft. In 2004, the or...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Aiko assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Miedenmolen, Holwerd: On the Edge of the Wadden

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bruno Rijsman, CC BY-SA 2.0. Holwerd lies on the very edge of the Wadden Sea, the tidal flats that stretch from the Netherlands into Germany and Denmark. The ferry to the island of Ameland leaves from here. The land behind the dike is so flat that the Miedenmolen stands as the tallest object for kilometres i...

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Image: Bruno Rijsman | CC BY-SA 2.0