The Old Mill is a listed building in Fürstenberg/Weser in Lower Saxony, which was built as a windmill from 1744 and converted into a laboratory for the Fürstenberg porcelain manufactory from 1747. The building dates from the early days of the manufactory, when people were still experimenting with the technology of porcelain production before production began in Fürstenberg Castle. The Old Mill is one of the oldest preserved operating facilities of a porcelain factory in Europe.
The Alte Mühle is located on a property neighboring the Alte Brennhaus, around 500 meters from Fürstenberg Castle. The originally two-storey stone building measuring 20 × 11 meters was built by the inventor Johann Bessler as a windmill from 1744, as evidenced by the year 1744 in a lintel. With a horizontally rotating impeller, the mill was to use the updrafts that often prevailed in Fürstenberg. The mill was built on behalf of the Brunswick court councilor Heinrich Bernhard Schrader von Schliestedt, since there was no mill in the Fürstenberg district that could grind continuously throughout the year due to a lack of water. After Bessler died in Fürstenberg in 1745, the building remained unfinished as a windmill. According to some sources, he is said to have died by falling out of the new windmill building. After the court huntsman Johann Georg von Langen had founded the Fürstenberg porcelain manufactory on January 11, 1747 on behalf of Duke Karl I of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the building was converted. It was given a two-storey half-timbered top and inside was a laboratory with drying and kilns for the porcelain manufactory.
It was used as a laboratory until about 1755. Initially, the technical director of porcelain production, Johann Christoph Glaser, a self-proclaimed arcanist, lived in the building. Until the 1980s, the old mill served as a work apartment for the employees of the porcelain manufactory.
Source: Wikipedia
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