Diorama @museum.de

Horse-drawn carts, vintage cars, sailing boats, shepherds, sheep, meadows and fields. In the midst of this idyllic rural scene stands a tall windmill with a reefing stage, or gallery, and a smaller post mill. Horse-drawn carts drive up, the farmers deliver their grain or take the sacks of flour to the local village bakeries.

The galleried mill with the reefing stage is a model from Denmark. This type of mill has a walkway use by the miller to operate the tail pole and turn the sails into the wind. The sails in this model are common wooden lattice sails spread with sailcloth. Our own smock mill once had this type of sweep. Another working mill, a tower mill with lattice sails, can be found at Hanselaerertor in Kalkar, about 16 kilometres from here – that’s less than ten miles away.The earliest type of windmill in Europe was the open trestle post mill. The wooden body of the mill sits on a trestle, and a tail pole is used to turn it on its own axis into the wind. In our small model, the miller would have entered the mill via the stairs at the back of the body.
In the large display case, you’ll find another model of an open trestle post mill, also with lattice sails spread with sailcloth. That particular type is sometimes called a Deutsche Windmühle – a "German windmill".