Tower Mill and Studio Stella Polaris

The Stella Polaris (Latin for "North Star") is a tower mill in Dieden, in the municipality of Oss. The Stella Polaris was in operation until 1955. From around 1900, the mill was owned by the Bijl family; before that, it belonged to the Holten family. The mill was built in 1865 as a grain mill. During construction, second-hand materials were used, including the thick support beams of the milling and stone floors, which came from a demolished mill that had stood on the opposite side of the River Maas. These beams therefore date from well before 1865. In 1958, an unmarried nurse from Bennekom converted the mill into a residence. To create living space, the milling machinery was removed, leaving only the internal mechanism in the cap and the brake wheel intact. Living in the mill, however, turned out to be a disappointment. It was cold and damp, and the winters were nearly unbearable. After three years, she had had enough and left. In 1964, the mill was sold to a Rotterdam shipowner, who used it to store his archive. Shortly afterwards, he moved abroad, leaving the mill unattended for many years. It quickly fell into disrepair: “Moisture began to eat away at the interior, and the vandalism of local youths finished off the exterior.” Shortly after the shipowner’s death in the spring of 1972, the mill was squatted by a young couple. They carried out some basic repairs, but by the autumn of that same year, the cold and damp proved too much, and they left. A mill inventory from mid-1973 states: "The mill is no longer in use as a residence and stands completely abandoned on the dike." One of the former residents was aviation author Hugo Hooftman, who lived in the mill in the early 1980s. The mill was restored in the 1980s and again by the current owners in 2004. Today, the Stella Polaris operates only “for the Prince” (a reference to the Prince of Orange), meaning that the sails turn, but no grain is milled. The current owners and residents are Henk van Loon and Jeanette Henrichs.

The mill is not open to visitors.

This text has been translated using AI.