By Porter Lang
Mustard, oil, dye and sawn timber were all once made by wind. That is the point of the place.
Where it is
Zaanse Schans is in North Holland, in the Zaan region. The site’s own history page says buildings were brought here by road and water from 1961.
Why the Zaan was industrial
The site’s history page calls the Zaan region the oldest industrial area in Western Europe and says that at its peak about 600 windmills worked at the same time. It lists the products: sawn timber, paper, ground spices, oil for food and paint, dyes, fibres, flour and cocoa powder. This is the site’s own account.
It credits an invention to Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1594: the crankshaft, which turned the horizontal motion of the sails into a vertical sawing motion. The page says this raised the capacity of the sawmills and led to further industrial growth. It says that in the seventeenth century 26 Zaan shipyards launched between 100 and 150 ships a year, making the district the centre of commercial shipbuilding in Europe, and that the district played a part in whaling until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Houses and habits
The same page says wealthy merchants built homes along the Zaan, then a major thoroughfare, with colourful exteriors in shades of green, beige and light blue. It describes two signs of prosperity: the goedjaarsend, a house extension, and the overtuin, a separate garden across the road. It says Zaan people shared technological discoveries and set up fire contracts as mutual insurance against windmill fires.
A museum or a town?
The history page calls the site an experiential heritage place, where visitors can see period architecture, working windmills and museums about the industrial era. Treat it as a curated place, and ask which buildings are original to their spots, which were moved and which are reconstructions.
What to ask before you buy
We have not profiled any maker, workshop or shop here, and we will not name one we cannot source. If a product says it is made at the mills, ask what was milled, pressed or sawn, where and by whom. The old products listed above, oil, paint, mustard, timber and paper, are a useful checklist of what a mill could plausibly have made. We are not recommending any producer.
Roam first. Shop later.
North Holland makers can find out what’s involved at /sell-with-sephari/