Molen De Zwaluw

The inhabitants of Hasselt used to have to go all the way to Zwolle to have their grain milled or to buy flour. Especially for the bakers from Zwolle this was very annoying and also very expensive. That is why the De Zwaluw windmill was built at the end of the eighteenth century. The mill has been in the hands of different families over the centuries. The De Zwaluw windmill stands on the head of the only masonry seawall in the Netherlands. In the past, this seawall served as protection against the water of the Zuiderzee. The mill has been milling for a long time, but after the Second World War the mill was given a different function. The mesh was removed from the mill to see if electricity could be generated with a mill. This proved unsuccessful. The grinding mechanism was replaced and the mill was restored, so that milling could be done again. The mill was still running until the end of the twentieth century.