Kinderdijk’s windmills have been photographed many times. That is no reason to skip them, but it is a reason to look at what is actually in front of you. The nineteen mills were not assembled for the view. They belong to a water-management system in the Alblasserwaard.
The polders lie low. Water could therefore not always drain into the river by itself. The mills first raised it to a higher storage basin, where it could wait before being discharged further.
Two rows, one water problem
The eight Nederwaard mills were built in 1738. In 1740, the Overwaard also received eight drainage mills. Together with the mills for Nieuw-Lekkerland and De Blokker, they make up the familiar group of nineteen. Their earliest predecessors go back further, but most of the present mills date from the eighteenth century.
The brick mills of the Nederwaard and the thatched mills of the Overwaard look different. Even at one well-known location, there is more to distinguish than a row of identical mills. Their shared purpose was to move water, not to grind grain.
Later, steam-powered and other modern pumping stations took over an increasing share of the work. The historic system survived and has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1997. That status concerns the relationship between mills, waterways, storage basins, sluices and pumping stations.
For photography, the water adds another layer. The mills do not only stand in succession across the landscape; in suitable conditions, their shapes appear as reflections too. Wind and moving water can change that picture in an instant.
The paths and water make the distances between the mills visible. An overview can therefore work well, but a tighter frame tells a different story about one building and its place in the system. Both belong to Kinderdijk.
The Kinderdijk website explains which mills can be visited and what a visit involves. Here, the photographs show the landscape and the engineering behind it. If you only see the turning sails, you miss the water they were built for.
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