De Vrijheid, Rotterdam

De Vrijheid is a windmill in Schiedam. The mill at Noordvest 40 is the "neighbor mill" of mill De Noord and was built in 1785 by order of a number of burners as a stone rack mill between the mill De Noord and the former mill De Star, but against the wishes of several other burners. They were afraid that the new mill would obstruct the wind catch for other mills because of its width and size. The mill milled for the distilleries until 1917.

Since 1917 the mill got another grinding activity for the new owner, Cornelis Antonius Knock and started grinding cattle feed. In 1939 the mill had to be restored. During the hunger winter in 1944/1945 the mill milled peas and beans for the soup kitchen. After the war the activities were stopped and in 1960 the municipality of Schiedam bought the mill. After a thorough restoration by a group of volunteers, in 1974 the mill was once again ready for grinding and came into full operation. De Vrijheid is completely furnished as a flour mill and equipped with three couples of stones, one with electric auxiliary drive, various mixing kettles, silos, cleaner, crushing roll, etc. De Vrijheid is owned by the Schiedam Windmills Foundation. The mill is still in operation every day for various bakers, distilleries, catering and mill stores. The miller is a member of the Artisanal Corn Millers Guild.