Archive for the 'General' category
October 28, 2005 12:49 pm
Finally, the St Bernard mill in Lubbeek belongs to us! Months of anxious paperwork have finally paid off: the final deed transfer was signed just an hour ago. The worn, rusty key, 130 years old, is lying right next to my keyboard. Ilze and I will certainly celebrate tonight, and champagne will be consumed!
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The clock is ticking, and within a couple of hours we will have taken physical ownership of the property. I’ve been for my medical examination for insurance purposes, Ilze has hers this afternoon. Fortis have presumably paid the €147,000 for the land into our notary’s bank account.
All that remains to be done is to visit our notary (in an hour) to finalise the paperwork for the insurance, and to meet with the seller and his notary to sign over the deed. And then, if everything goes according to plan, we will be the proud legal owners of a windmill.
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October 10, 2005 12:40 pm
The Belgian mill fanatics at Molenechos have compiled a database of Belgian windmills, and lo and behold, our windmill is listed. Their records basically confirm what we’ve managed to learn so far: the mill was built in 1870, and the sails were removed in 1936. One Jozef Vrijdags received permission to build the mill on 22 september 1869, so there you have it. Our windmill has a birthday.
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It’s been a quiet couple of days, windmill-wise. I spent a few days in Berlin for a meeting, Ilze went to Cologne to teach, and the bank and lawyers have been keeping themselves amused. But amusement of banks and lawyers can of course only lead to paperwork, which is what we’ll be doing this afternoon. They have some papers for us to sign, probably giving them ownership of every single penny we will ever earn. They’ll also be giving us paperwork to take to our GP for a physical for the insurance.
Mmm… perhaps I shouldn’t have been drinking so much coffee today…
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September 26, 2005 12:31 pm
 As promised, I’m providing a brief translation of the mainly Dutch information about the castle located close to the windmill.
The origins of Horst Castle can be traced to the 13th century, when its proximity to Leuven and location in the Winge valley made it of strategic importance. Travellers (and approaching armies) from Germany and Liege had to pass through this valley on their way to Mechelen and Antwerp. Part of the castle structure was built in the early 15th century, although some recently excavated parts of the structure date back to the 14th century.
The castle once probably formed an artificial island in the Winge valley, surrounded by wooden buildings and a palisade. The current structure stands as it stood in the 17th century, when Maria-Anne van den Tympel had decorative work done by J.C. Hansche, depicting various scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Hansche’s work on the castle supposedly include imagery from Gabriel Rollenhagen’s 17th century work, although I haven’t seen this yet.
After brief use as a school after the Second World War, the castle has not been occupied. A gallery of photographs of the castle can be found here.
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An interesting discovery in our new neighbourhood: Horst Castle, just up the road a mile or three. Dating back to the 13th century, the castle is currently undergoing extensive restoration. It’s a lovely big domain, with lots of space for taking walks, and there’s a tavern on the grounds. Real incentive for walking up there and having a beer!
There’s a nice summary of the restoration and facilities available on the Flemish government’s website (in Dutch):
http://www.monument.vlaanderen.be/sve/nl/monumenten/horst.htm
The University of Leuven as some more information on the archeological excavations (also in Dutch):
http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/wea/Horst/
I’ll write up a short English summary of the history of Horst Castle sometime.
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We attended our first building and renovations expo over the weekend, Kbouw in Kortrijk in Western Flanders. I saw some interesting things, but mostly just ideas I would like to explore in further detail. The only item which really caught my fancy was a gas-powered fireplace, sealed off from the room with a glass pane, with the flames spurting from amid white pebbles. Like a pyromaniac’s zen garden. A framed, animated work of art radiating heat. Yes, I can picture myself relaxing in front of that with a nice glass of whiskey…
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September 11, 2005 9:53 am
As promised, I’ve generated several images from a video I took of the mill. It was a cloudy day on and off, so some of the stills are very dark. (An alternative theory is that I captured the video with my brightness set too low and my contrast set too high, and I’m just too lazy to do it all again.)
Show me more… »
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September 8, 2005 8:40 am
Why is this an open source windmill? How is this an open source windmill? And, most important of all, what is open source?
I’ve classified this windmill project as open source based on the Wikipedia definition(s): products whose sources or design documents are open for use, modification and redistribution and a radically transparent procedure or process. I intend to make documentation and information related to the windmill available for download here, regardless of whether anyone is interested or not.
For every popular open source project (say, Linux) there are thousands of projects which never get used by anyone. Open source is not a popularity contenst, it’s about opening up information to the world, allowing others to learn from your mistakes, and perhaps even allowing them to help you avoid those mistakes in the first place.
The idea isn’t to get architects and engineers and interior designers to give away their ideas for free (although more open source information is always welcome!), but to foster the culture of share and share alike that helped build the Internet in the first place. If more offline projects would adopt this approach, the world could only become a better place.
Open Source Windmill
An open source project to renovate a windmill in the Flanders region of Belgium.
Anton Raath
Update: For now, I’ve dropped the “open source” part. There’s not that much to open source, and what there is I post on the site anyway. And building blogs (or renovations blogs, if you don’t subscribe to alliteration) abound the Net, so there’s nothing particularly big or clever about this one.
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Well shave me nuts and call me Martha, there’s a website called Windmill World all about windmills. Apparently where strange people with strange interests gather, websites will spring up. They have photographs of windmills from all over, but none from Belgium. I’ll have to look into this, perhaps send them some proper photographs once I’ve taken them. I also have video footage of the mill, which I’ll add here as soon as I get a moment to size it down a bit.
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