SAVING A LOST CRAFT
96 | July• 2019
PHOTO, PREVIOUS SPREAD (WOOD BACKGROUND): HOMYDESIGN/SHUTTERSTOCKthe mill today, I would pump water
out from under the thin ice sheet, and
that would be dangerous when people
step on it in a couple of days to skate
on it.” The mental image this created
of a 17th century winter scene with
ice-skating children on a polder canal
framed with willows and windmills
would have been perfect if it hadn’t
been for the noise of the 12-lane A1
motorway to Amsterdam behind me
and the train rumbling on the horizon.
Part arable land and part bird
sanctuary, the
Naardermeer is one
of 4000 polders in the
Netherlands that form
the basis upon which
the country has be-
come a global player
in the field of water
management and
aquatic engineering.
With almost half the
country below sea lev-
el, climate change is as much a local
challenge as it is a global business
opportunity for Dutch engineering
companies and consultants.
I’m surprised to learn that the
15-metre-high thatch-covered De
Onrust (the name means ‘regula-
tor’), with a blade span of 26.2 me-
tres, is actually the only installa-
tion to control the water level in the
Naardermeer polder and lake. No
modern diesel-powered or electric
pumps here. Suurmond explains
that originally there would havethis romanticised image of the Dutch
past, together with tulips, cheese
and wooden shoes, but hardly rele-
vant,” he said. His attitude changed
about ten years ago, five years before
retiring from the airline KLM. He was
riding his bicycle in the vicinity of his
hometown Muiderberg, near Naarder-
meer polder southeast of Amsterdam,
when curiosity drove him to stop at De
Onrust and walk in.
“I met the miller, a former flight
engineer in the air force,” says Suur-
mond. “That created
a bond, of course.
The man explained
about the mill. When
I left after a couple of
hours, I had signed up
to a course to become
a volunteer miller
myself.”
It is a grey but mild
winter morning. We
have coffee at the ta-
ble. In the centre of the small room
is a cast-iron stove, and hanging on
the walls are pictures of windmills
and portraits of millers dating to the
19th century. All that’s missing is the
rhythmic whoosh of the mill’s blades
passing the window, the thump of the
large paddle wheel, and the splash of
water being pumped from the lower
channel to the higher one and away
to sea through the Vecht River.
The mill cannot run today, Suur-
mond had explained when he greet-
ed me on the dike outside. “If I ran
DE ONRUST IS
THE ONLY
I N S TA L L ATI O N
NEEDED TO
CONTROL THE
WATER LEVEL
IN THE POLDER
AND LAKE