Great Kalkaertsleen

Today, the Great Kalkaertsleen, as it has been called since at least the 18th century, is a well-preserved 18th-century site. It is situated on a slight elevation, and to this day, the centuries-old rectangular enclosure has been respected. The oldest buildings are whitewashed, while the two outbuildings from the interwar period are not.
The centerpiece of this farm is the horse mill, a whitewashed, octagonal brick building topped with a tent roof. The cobbled walkway on which the two horses moved around inside the building has been preserved. The horses activated the grinding mechanism in the interior because they were connected to the millstones by means of a tail beam, which has unfortunately disappeared, along with the millstone pair. The original thatch roof was replaced with mechanical tiles in 1976.
History: this farm is located on the silt island of Ter Waese, in the middle of the former Testerep trench. This part of the trench has naturally silting up with trench sands and further evolved into a salt marsh at a time when the trench was still active and under slight tidal influence. This period must have been relatively close to the drainage of the Testerep trench in the course of the 12th century.
Ter Waese is thus an indication of the slow but gradual silting up of the trench bed during the High Middle Ages. The farm originally took the name of the land on which it was built: Ter Waese. The farm stands out due to its large, rectangular yard, surrounded by a moat. It is one of the few Nieuwland lands that remained in the possession of secular powers in the 12th and 13th centuries and did not pass into religious hands. The feudal elite that owned this estate did not opt for the imitation of an upper and lower court here, which is exceptional for the period and location.

Toerisme Middelkerke