MINDEN-LÜBBECKE

Our craft museum

You are standing at the newest building in our heritage ensemble: the Museum of Rural Crafts. We built it in 2022/2023 with the client Kreis-Mühlenverein and financial support from the state of NRW. It is not intended to be a "classic" museum of local history or village museum, but rather to focus exclusively on the crafts that characterized rural village life in our region between approx. 1850 and approx. 1950 on an area of approx. 65 m². This takes up and condenses what has long been on display here: The miller's craft as a "service business" for agriculture and the baker's craft in our bakehouse. The Sielhorster Flegeldrescher also demonstrate the old threshing technique every year, the Tonnenheider Strickeschläger regularly set up their Reeperbahn and old tractor enthusiasts show visitors old agricultural machinery. Now there were two new occasions: the old BAUMI (see 2nd page) from 1921 had been painstakingly restored and needed to be shown somehow. And we were offered the forge from the Weher village smithy. With it and additional accessories, we were able to show the blacksmith's craft, which was so important for the period in question (see page 3). We cannot show all of the crafts here, and not all of those we can show in the form of tangible exhibits. For example, we will present the wheelwright's craft on a baking day in the form of a special exhibition, and other crafts will follow. And we will be providing digital forms of presentation alongside the exhibits. The Gauselmann Foundation has made it possible to purchase a media station with a donation. A touch screen will not only provide further information on the crafts on display and their development, but will also show interesting facts about our cultural offerings and the culture surrounding us.