Kinderdijk

Kinderdijk is a village of the Netherlands, located at horse on the territory of the communes of Nieuw-Lekkerland and Alblasserdam, to approximately 15 km in the east of Rotterdam.

The village is in a Polder with the Confluent of the rivers Lek and Noord. To drain the Polder, a system of windmills was built towards 1740. This group of Windmills is from now on the group of old mills most important and best preserved Netherlands.

The Windmills of Kinderdijk are one of the tourist sites most known of the Netherlands. The site was recognized like belonging to the World heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 1997.

Several stories circulate about the origin of the name of the site, which attaches the dam to the children. One of them originates in a legend brought back during the flood from November 18th to 19th 1421 (Inondation of the Holy-Elisabeth), sadly remained famous, the floods having absorbed some 60 villages. The legend reports that a cat, in the middle of the unchained waves, would have succeeded in maintaining in balance a baby in his cradle. The dam on which the cradle would have been failed was named Kinderdijk, the dam of the child .

History

It is known that the area of Kinderdijk is inhabited since XI^ème century. In order to supply itself out of fuel for their daily needs and also to gain cultivable grounds on the marshes by digging ditches and channels, the inhabitants started to extract the peat and drained the area thus little by little.

At the beginning, the water of the marshes was evacuated naturally and the rainwater ran out by the means of the brooks through peat bogs, to join the sea via the large rivers around I' Alblasserwaard and of Vijfheerenlanden. But the extraction of the peat and the exploitation of the cultivable grounds, whose humus mineralizes very quickly, had as consequence which the grounds started to subside while, compared to the ground, the level of the rivers continued to go up. To control this rise of the level of water, the inhabitants built dams and locks, so that the area is not submerged.

The first long channels of drainage in the Alblasserwaard date from XI^ème century. Hundred years later, a dam surrounded already the near total of the area and the basins of the two rivers which cross the Alblasserwaard, the Alblas and the Giessen, were arranged. They became respectively the districts of the Nederwaard (lowland) and of the Overwaard (highland). In 1277, the count Florent V of Holland created the Administration of water and polders of this district, organism in charge of the maintenance of the dams.

At that time, when the level of the rivers was low, one could drain the fields by opening the locks to pour in the rivers surplus water. However, since the process of mineralization of the grounds and the extraction of the peat to make fuel of it continued, the ground to subside and the level of water to assemble, drain the polders by means of locks located on the channels and the dams were not sufficient any more to control the level of water.

In 1366, basins were arranged at the place low of the Alblasserwaard, and one could still pour water in the river grace also to the use of locks. However, at the beginning of XV^éme century, one started to use mills in order to maintain on lowest the level of water in the polders.

Following a large flood which has occurred in 1726, it became clear that mills of drainage were essential. One thus built in 1738 in the Nederwaard the 8 round brick mills which one can still admire on the spot. Two years later, the same number of mills, this time octagonal and covered with thatch, was built other side of the channel, on the Overwaard. Thanks to these mills, water could reach 1 m more in the upstream reservoirs, before being poured in the Lek according to its level.

In 1868, in full industrial revolution, pumping stations with vapor were built on each side of the Lek. Today, the management of water is ensured by modern pumping stations like the station on the Nederwaard (J.U. Smit - gemaal), whose capacity is of 1 ' 350 m ³ /minute or that on the Overwaard, whose capacity is of 1 ' 500 m ³ /minute. These pumping stations use a system of Archimedes' screw which one can observe operation on the spot. In 2001, a third stage of drainage at summer put at contribution, once again cause a drop in the level of the rivers which continues to go up compared to the ground.

The site of Kinderdijk

Since centuries, Kinderdijk manages water of Alblasserwaard. The area is always consisted of the mill and basin, canal system, to which the water of the polders was in the beginning evacuated towards the Lek. All the free surrounding construction campaign, requirement with an optimal setting with profit of the wind, is always mainly unchanged.

For this reason in 1997, the network of mills of Kinderdijk was placed on the list of the World heritage of UNESCO, a recognition of the importance of management and conservation of this area.

The site of Kinderdijk is single in the world, one nowhere does not find elsewhere as many as well preserved mills and in also great number. In all, nineteen windmills draw up there in the vicinity from/to each other:

8 mills on the Nederwaard
8 mills on I' Overwaard
2 mills on the polder of Nieuw-Lekkerland, including one Mill with pivot
1 mill on the Blokweer

The mills of the Nederwaard are brick mills with revolving cap with covered paddle wheel. They were built in 1738. Those of Overwaard and the polder of Nieuw-Lekkerland are octagonal mills with covered paddle wheel and thatch cap, which were built in 1740. Only the last mill of the Polder of Nieuw-Lekkerland, a water mill of the type “Wipmolen” or Mill with pivot, date of 1761.

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