Rottenerij Sabbe

Roterij Sabbe has been closed since the seventies and looks somewhat neglected at first glance, but in reality it is one of the best preserved roterij along the Leie. Since 2005, the site has been protected as a monument, including the steam engine and chimney.

Roterij Sabbe is located on bondgenotenlaan, but you can also go and see them on the towpath along the Leie. A little further along the towpath you come to flax company Verschaeve, also a very important site - there is a separate point dedicated to it.

The two sites together give a good picture of the flax industry in the period 1920 to, say, 1960: you have the typical root pits, the steam engines with the associated chimney, a few flax sheds and possibly a zwingelarij. Around the buildings are the drying meadows, where the typical flax chapel is put to dry.

Behind the doors at the bottom of the concrete building are the root pits: they are filled with flax and then supplemented with water of about 32 degrees. This initiates a rotting process that detaches the textile fibers from the woody core of the flax stalk.

In the zwingelarij, that stem core is then broken, and the woody pipes that are thus created from the textile fibers are removed. The pipes were called 'mud', and the flaxers used them as fuel for their steam engines. That is why steam engines have been used in the flax industry for so long: there were hardly any heating costs. The Sabbe rotting plant also ran on steam until the seventies.

At the point 'Huis Sabbe' you will learn more about the flax family Sabbe.

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