International Wind- and Watermill Museum

The International Wind- and Watermill Museum (German: Internationales Wind- und Wassermühlen-Museum), at Gifhorn in the German state of Lower Saxony, is the only one of its kind in Europe. On the museum's open-air site, which covers an area of around 16 hectares (40 acres), there are currently 16 mills from 12 different countries (as at 2009). The mills are either original or faithful reproductions and are set in landscapes typical of their origins. Right across the site are historic artefacts associated with mills and the milling industry. The museum site is easily accessed by road; nearby is the intersection between the B 4 and B 188 federal highways. The museum is station 65 on the Lower Saxon Mill Road.

The history of the mill museum is closely linked to its founder and owner, Horst Wrobel. In 1965 he discovered an old post mill that was still working, on the Elm ridge at Abbenrode during an outing. Horst Wrobel made a replica of the mill at a scale of 1:25 and then collected all kinds of material about windmills and watermills. In 1974 he established a private museum in Suhlendorf with the first models of mills that he had built. In order to create a larger scale model, he first made overtures in 1977 to the district of Gifhorn, who then actively supported the project. In the same year the two parties concluded a leasehold agreement for the land of the future museum site.

The mill museum opened its doors in 1980 following two years of extensive field engineering by the Aller-Ohre-Verband. With the aid of bulldozers and flushing dredgers, the terrain was landscaped and numerous ditches and ponds created, as well as a 5 hectare mill lake. The lake also acts as a retention basin to prevent flooding to and to regulate the flow of the river Ise. The first structures to be built were the exhibition hall and three mills (The Kellerholländer, the post mill (Bockwindmühle) and the Tyrolean watermill).

...
Wikipedia