High and Greenland Mill

The landscape you cycle through was for centuries a swampy peat meadow area. To make this suitable for habitation and agricultural use, it had to be drained. Initially - from the 12th century - this was done by digging drainage ditches. Examples of these straight ditches can be seen on your left-hand side. As the land dries up, the ground level drops and approaches the groundwater level, causing the soil to become marshy again. Over the centuries, the land became lower than the river from which it was drained. This is called 'reversal of the land'. Draining could no longer be done naturally, but windmills were needed to pump the land dry. The Hoog- and Groenlandse mill from 1680 is one such water or polder mill. The polders it drained formed, together with the polders Roodemolen and Donkervliet, an area where a ring dyke was laid around in 1676. This ring dyke is still clearly visible on your right-hand side.

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