The industrial windmills of Zaanse Schans

Zaanse Schans is an open air museum in Holland. This part of the country was one of the world's first industrial sites. It had thousands of windmills engaged in milling spices, pigments, oils and many other products. There were over 200 wind powered sawmills.

Zaanse Schans has a number of working mills that you can visit for a fee of three euro per mill.

This is a spice mill grinding cinnamon.

There is also a pigment mill. The exhibit below shows some of the natural materials that used to be milled to produce pigments before the advent of synthetic pigments.

The mill also has a shop selling the pigments it produces.

The video below shows the interior of The Young Sheep wind powered sawmill.  The original Young Sheep mill was demolished during WW2 but detailed plans were kept and the mill has recently been reconstructed. It is an impressive piece of technology. Three logs can be sawn at the same time and each saw has multiple blades so that a log can be reduced to planks with one pass through a saw.