"""De Zwarte Ruiter"""

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, in Dutch. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

Introduction

Incomplete mill, built in 1778 on the present site as a POLDER MILL of the Kleine Noord- or Schinkelpolder to replace an old mill that stood further north at the then Haarlemmermeer. Presumably the new mill was built further inland for protection against bank erosion caused by the lake water. The mill was initially equipped with a scoop wheel as a water-lifting device. This can still be seen today in the eccentric placement of the access door. In the first half of the last century, however, the polder was leased out for peat extraction, after which the reclamation followed in 1858. The present underlying polder is thus a reclaimed polder, a former peat lake whose bottom lies an estimated three to three-and-a-half metres lower than the ground level of the peat polder in 1778. In order to be able to pump out this peat lake and subsequently keep the deep polder dry, the mill was equipped with a different water-lifting device in 1857. A choice was made for iron suction pumps, which was extremely unusual in mill construction. Only a single mill was ever equipped with this. At the same time, a second, new large screw-lift mill was built slightly further north. The pump mill evidently became surplus to requirements soon after, whereupon it was converted into a grain mill in or shortly after 1866. This was possibly in relation to the neighbouring Haarlemmermeer, which had dried up (grain cultivation) and the abolition of the tax on pumping (flour production) in the middle of the last century. As a grain mill, "De Zwarte Ruiter" remained in use until the First World War. In 1919 a sail was struck off by lightning and thereafter the mill, which was given a residential function, changed hands several times. Before the Second World War, the mill was for a time a meeting point for artists of the Amsterdam School. Around 1930 the remaining sail cross was removed and later still the tail. Around 1950 the pairs of millstones were removed.

Description

An eight-sided mill dating from 1778, thatched with reeds, incomplete, on approximately two-metre-high field walls. The mill is of the top-rotating type. The lower part of the mill is plastered white and above that is a thatched covering. The roof is also thatched. At the base of the roof, below the place where the sails were located, an ornately carved beard has been placed on which 'anno 1778 Zwarte Ruiter' can be read. The octagon, the roof and the rotating mechanism are present. Below the mill are the pump cellars.

Valuation

The mill is of general importance by virtue of its cultural-historical, water-management and situational value as an example of a polder mill that is still readily recognizable in its main form and which has undergone an interesting development due to various changes in technical and functional respects, characteristically located at the western ring dike of the polder. Also noteworthy is that before the Second World War the mill served for a time as a meeting point for artists of the Amsterdam School.