Source of video: Kroměřížsko
The windmill in Velké Těšany was declared a National Cultural Monument in 2014. It is a columnar type of windmill, sometimes also referred to as ram or German type with a rotating timbered structure. It spans across three levels – the ground floor where the supporting structure is visible, first floor where the milled flour was dropped, and the second floor to where the millers carried the sacks with grain and fed them into the milling mechanism.
The history of this mill dates back to 1830 when the land was purchased by a man named Josef Bartoň, who intended to build a windmill there. Unfortunately, he died only a year later and the mill then passed through many hands. In 1889 it was acquired by Jan Páter for his son Josef. The next year, however, the mill collapsed due to a massive gust of wind. Josef Páter had the windmill rebuilt, this time with doubled supporting frame. As a father of 11 children, he had to seek other sources of income, so he bought some farmland as well.
Although milling was forbidden at the times of the Protectorate during World War II, the miller František Páter (descendant of the late Josef) did not obey the ban. Despite having the mill shut and sealed, he continued to mill flour until 1942 when Gestapo arrested him for allegedly handing over a rifle and ammunition to a resistance group in the hills of Hostýn. When he later died in the Pankrác prison in Prague, his brothers held onto the windmill in his respect. By the end of the war it was dilapidated and in 1946 there was an attempt to take it apart and use the timber as firewood, yet it still survived. In the 1960s it was close to collapsing, and so the culture department of the Kroměříž local authority bought it from Anežka Páterová. Thanks to that, a complete reconstruction could begin in 1972. In 1975 the mill was transferred under the Kroměříž District Museum. Since 1979 it has been open to the public.
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