Windmill Charlotte

The Charlotte mill is the architectural symbol of the Geltinger Birk and welcomes day-trippers and holidaymakers at the entrance to the nature reserve from the Geltinger Noor.

The Erdholländer mill, built to drain the Noor and to grind grain, was built in 1826 by Rittmeister von Hobe vom Gut Gelting. It was their task, together with another mill, to pump the groundwater from the fields behind it into the Baltic Sea.

The mill was named after head equerry Charlotte von Plessen, a née Duchess of Mecklenburg, who died in Gelting Castle in 1822. Today the mill is privately owned and has been converted into a comfortable holiday home.

The Dutch mill Charlotte. formerly served the artificial drainage of the Birk.

The Geltinger Birk was created in 1821 by dike in the Great Noores, a side bay of the Baltic Sea. In order to pump surface water from the drained lowlands of the Birk, the then Geltinger Rittmeister von Hobe had the mill built in 1826 on the dam leading from Goldhöft to Birk on the so-called Goldhöftberg. The construction costs for the combined scoop and grain mill amounted to around 9700 Reichstaler.
From then on, the structure primarily served to drain the Birk. The necessary transport of water from the lowlands to higher lying areas was realized with a screw. When there was no wind, an electric motor drove the water auger. At that time there was about 333 hectares of agricultural land in the Birk.
Source: Wikipedia