Village square and mills

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The “rue Ande­thana” once

The old vil­lage of Ober­an­ven is one of these typ­i­cal « street vil­lages » with its « rue Ande­thana » as the main road, par­al­lel to the brook « Staflick » (or Hostert brook).

The vil­lage square of Ober­an­ven with the mill­stone set up in hon­or of our local his­to­ri­an Emile Erpelding.

A street vil­lage is char­ac­ter­is­tic for the absence of a vil­lage cen­tre or vil­lage place. In 1997, at the occa­sion of demo­li­tion of the house at the inter­sec­tion of the “rue du coin” and the “rue Ande­thana”, a kind of cen­tral place in form of a lit­tle green space, a busstop, lit­tle paths with bench­es and a mon­u­ment in mem­o­ry of the local his­to­ri­an and nation­al chron­i­cler Emile Erpeld­ing had been set up.

In 1988 Emile Erpeld­ing received from the Rhineland author­i­ties the “Rhein­land­taler” awards for his sur­vey about the region­al and lin­guis­tic cul­ture. Emile Erpeld­ing was also famous in the out­er region for his work “The Lux­em­bourg mills”.

The mills in Oberanven

4 large adja­cent mills were run­ning in Ober­an­ven, sup­plied by the water of the Hostert brook (Staflick): the Wern­er mill (the ban mill of Ober­an­ven), the Kin­nen mill, the Zammesch mill and the saw mill.

Over the cen­turies they marked the gen­er­al aspect of the vil­lage and deter­mined its eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. The mills had dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es: there was a cere­al mill, a paper mill and a saw mill.

The func­tions of the mills could be adapt­ed to the needs and the build­ings could be enlarged accord­ing to the eco­nom­ic situation.

The Werner Mill

The Wern­er mill, also called “Wer­neschmillen” can be con­sid­ered as the ban mill of Oberanven.

Its ori­gin goes back to the year 1605. Dur­ing that time the pro­duc­tion depend­ed on the land­lord, who ordered a miller to be at his service.

The old cere­al mill had been trans­formed into a paper mill from 1824 to 1842, before being changed again into a grind mill until the 20s and 30s of the 20th century.

The Zammesch Mill

The Zammesch Mill was found­ed in 1797 as a flour mill and had its name from the Zim­mer fam­i­ly, liv­ing on the site until 1729. Up from 1811, the mill had been work­ing into a paper mill until the sec­ond half of the 19th cen­tu­ry. Lat­er on until the 30s of the 20th cen­tu­ry, the mill worked as a cere­al mill.

The old Kin­nen Mill

The old saw mill

The prop­er­ty of the old Feltz Family

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