2413, 2700 NETHERLANDS (Netherlands / South Holland) - A hollow post mill in Kaag

2413 A hollow post mill in Kaag

Posted on 27.03.2016, 21.08.2016
The post mill is probably the earliest type of European windmill, and it was invented because in Europe the wind has no prevailing direction. The defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. The design and usage of these windmills peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries and then declined after the introduction of high-speed steam-driven milling machinery.

2700 A hollow post mill

Among the many variants of post mills are the hollow post mills. In these mills the main post is bored to take a driveshaft, similar to an Upright Shaft in a smock or tower mill. This enables the mill to drive machinery in the base or roundhouse. In the Netherlands, they are called wipmolen and were mostly used for drainage (poldermolen). This type of windmill was used mainly in the polder areas of central and western Netherlands.

Such a windmill it is the one shown in the postcard 2413, located in Kaag, a village which lies on an island, Kagereiland, in the Dutch province of South Holland. It dates probably from about 1683 and was built for the drainage of the Kaagerpolder. This pretty old windmill has provided the main drainage of the polder until 1985. The mill was originally owned by the waterboard Kaagpolder, then by the waterboard De Oude Veenen.

About the stamps
On the postcard 2413
The stamps are part of the series 500 Years of Hieronymus Bosch, designed by Jeroen Hoedjes and issued on January 4, 2016. This series mark the 500th anniversary of the death of painter Hieronymus Bosch, probably the most important Dutch Medieval artist. It is actually a sheet with ten parts of his painting The Haywain Triptych. The designer explained: "The Haywain Triptych was the only perfect painting to use for this concept. With a lot of shifting and moving around, I was able to get ten meaningful scenes out of it with different characters on each stamp. Almost as if they were ten separate little paintings."

On the postcard 2700
The stamp is one of the two issued by Netherlands for Europa Stamps 2013, with the theme The postman van., about which I wrote here.

References
Post mill - Wikipedia

Sender: Marianne / MarianneGroningen (postcrossing) NL-3368654
Sent from Groningen (Groningen / Netherlands), on 21.03.2016
Sender: Ado Vijge (direct swap) - born on August 8
Sent from Apeldoorn (Gelderland / Netherlands), on 01.08.2013