Anne's Daily Encounters

By dutchdelight

Mill of Leidschendam

In between Leiden and Den Haag this mill is positionned and actually not far out from the lake and leisureground where I blipped the many people  who enjoyed the Summer's day last week.

Wikipedia has the folowing info on this mill:

The Salamander is a sawmill in the Dutch town of Leidschendam. The mill was built in 1777 as a replacement for a burned-out predecessor from the seventeenth century. It was in operation until 1953. The rotating movement of the mill is transferred to the saw section by means of drive belts, where awnings attached to the crankshaft (kind of connecting rods) set the two saw frames in motion. The Salamander has a crankshaft with four cranks, but only two of them are used. The two saw frames are coupled to this. From the end of the 19th century a steam engine was used to be able to saw even when there was no wind. This steam engine was fired with waste wood.

In the early eighties only a ruin remained of the mill. In 1985 the Stichting Opbouw Salamander (S.O.S.) was founded, which ensured that the mill was dismantled and stored. In 1989 De Salamander was rebuilt at a new location on the Vliet. Originally, the sawmill stood a bit away from the Vliet. Since 25 October 1995 the mill has been in operation again, on a voluntary basis. Next to the mill is the so-called beam hole in the water, where the tree trunks are soaked before they are sawn.

Until 2004, the sawmill of the mill had a brown color, but the high heat absorption caused the paint to crack and therefore the mill needed a lot of maintenance. The sawmill has now been painted over in gray, a color that was also used for De Salamander in the past.

It's another dark and wet day today; we're lucky here in the West of Holland ~ of The Netherlands I should note, as Holland are just the two provinces North Holland and South Holland in the West of the country The Netherlands; it's these two provinces from which boats sailed across the world and then our country was a conglomeration of The Seven Provinces...hence the name Holland was known all over the world and here in the West of our country it's used lots too... but actually our country is named The Netherlands; so when I note Holland, I intend to say The Netherlands.

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