Vitsø Cove pump mill

Facts

Wind moved the water

By Lise Andersen, Museumsinspektør, mag.art. (17 stories)

Vitsø Cove on Ærø is a fiord arm covering about 150 hectares that was navigated by ships until about 1600. In the 18th century a hook of land occurred naturally that was closing the cove with piles of stone. In 1788, Ove Fabricius of Søby Farm began building dikes and draining Vitsø Cove. The pump mill at the cove is from 1838 and lies between the drainage channels. This type of windmill is called a soil Dutchman". The mill is one of Denmark's first windmills with a mechanism known as Archimedes' screw: a spiral screw inside a tight-fitting hollow pipe. As the screw turns, the thread lifts water from the bottom and out the top of the pipe. "

Partly a public place

Selected entry

One percent more of Denmark

Story written by Lise Andersen

Time / Periode 1838

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Internally, we have to make up for our external losses," wrote Hans Peter Holst in 1872. These words became the motto of the cultivator of the Danish heaths, Enrico Dalgas. But land reclamation had been known for centuries. From 1530 until 1964, 146 areas were dammed. This reclaimed land totalled 45,382 hectares, which is one percent of Denmark's surface area. The Danes invested most heavily in damming in densely populated farming areas. In the beginning, water was drained from reclaimed land using dams or sluices. Later a form of watermill wheel was used to move and lift the water. Drainage was also achieved using the ancient Greek invention Archimedes' screw – like the one at the pump mill at Vitsø Cove. "