Havichhorster Mill

The Havichhorster Mill on the Werse
The Havichhorster Mill belongs to Haus Havichhorst and is located on the Werse, not far from the old wall fortress Haskenau, where the Werse flows into the Ems.
Haus Havichhorst is mentioned for the first time in a document from 1032. The Havichhorster Mill appears for the first time in a document from Bishop Ludwig II. dated 1318.

The estate was originally owned by the Bishop of Münster, who later entrusted it to the cathedral dean. The estate with the mill was managed by a episcopal "Villicus," the "Schulten to Havichhorst."
During the time of the Anabaptists, this follower of the bishop sided with the Anabaptists and consequently lost his hereditary lease after the victory of the episcopal side. "... de Schulte to Havichhorst hef sick von sinen schonen Erve gegiven ..." states contemporary reports from the year 1546. The children have found grace in the eyes of the bishop, as the "Havichhorsts" are documented as hereditary tenants of the Schultenhof until the year 1774 in old records.

After the secularization, the estate with the mill came under the Prussian domain administration and was acquired by the then tenant Franz Joseph Hovestadt in 1831.
The Havichhorster Mill operated with waterwheels until 1880 and was then equipped with a turbine. Until 1965, this mill still ground and crushed using the water power of the turbine; then, for economic reasons, the plant had to be shut down. For years, environmentalists have lamented that the water of the Werse flows uselessly over the weir at the Havichhorster Mill and is not used for alternative power generation.

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