Chiefdoms & historic windmills
Chiefdoms & historic windmills
The Frisians of the 14th-16th centuries were ruled by chieftains. The sign and centre of their power was a house built of stone: the chief’s castle. The
moated castle in Pewsum was built by the Manninga family in 1458 and later rebuilt in the Dutch Renaissance style. It houses a registry office and a
museum. Another chieftain’s castle is the Osterburg in Groothusen. Gulf farms are typical of East Frisia. They consist of the narrower front end, where people live, and the wide “back end” with the gulf, a storage area for crops and equipment. Examples of modern useare the Gulfhof in Loquard, which has been converted into a school, the agricultural museum in Campen and various holiday resorts.
Mills also characterise the typical landscape of our region: Rysum, with its impressive mill, where you can also spend the night, is a typical circularwarf village. The twin mills in Greetsiel are the venue for art exhibitions and guided tours of the mills.Grain is still processed in the red milltoday. The Galerieholländer, the mill in Pewsum, houses the craft museum.The Pilsum Wind Energy Park and Groteland are two examples of “high-tech on the wind”. This form of energy generation has become an “East Frisian export hit”.
