A windmill as replacement

In order to avoid killing the sheep that were grazing from the land around the Essern windmill, the sails had to be shortened in 1749. This wasn’t the only modification over the course the mill’s life. Today the mill appears as it did when it was constructed in 1638. At the request of Johann Anton Schröder, District Magistrate in Diepenau, the mill was moved from the Essern location in the Essern heath (Nienburg County). It should have been used as a redundancy measure, when the water mill in Diepenau didn’t have enough water.

A post windmill

This mill is one of the oldest windmills in Lower Saxony and a typical example of a post or standing windmill. With this type of mill, the entire mill buck including the heavy milling machinery would rotate around a central post to face the wind. From the middle of the 18th century, this type of construction was increasingly displaced by the more easily operated tower or smock mills.