With 120 buildings, whose interiors can be discovered as historical treasure chambers, the implementation is exceptionally well done. For example, in the watermill from Melle directly behind the entrance area of the museum.
With big eyes, visitors already look from the outside at the overshot water wheel, which is powered by water from the adjacent pond. Like an tireless perpetual motion machine, it spins around. Upon crossing the threshold, history fans will finally realize what function the wooden structure actually has. It drives a machine that has processed flax for decades.
It consists of a hammer mill with a vertically standing, heavy oak beam. A shaft lifts several stampers in succession, which crash down repeatedly with great force. Hard to believe: At operating times, four workers used to sit simultaneously in front of the weights and placed two handfuls of flax underneath each. The weight helped to separate the different plant parts from one another. How many injuries might there have been at this post? Work around 1925 seems to have been dangerous in the Westphalian Boke and stamping mills.
A little further along the way, visitors to the north come across some agricultural farm structures including Kotten. Here, strollers pass by transport carts, explore Low German hall houses, and make authentic furnishings. Sometimes it's a studded chest for goods that catches attention, sometimes it's the open fireplace with a fixture and hanging cauldron. This area of the museum currently covers the Osnabrück and Minden regions as well as the Lippe Mountains.
Here, functional buildings from the past can be explored, such as a sheep barn, a pig shed, or a beehive. "Almost like in a fairy tale," describes a visitor the garden area of the Lippischen Meierhofes, which offers lush greenery. She learns about the various types of plants that grow here through small signs in the ground.
From the pleasant oasis, a path finally leads to several grain fields. The road extends eastward to the construction group Paderborner Land and Weserbergland, where a closed clustered village awaits guests who want to explore the predominant settlement form in eastern Westphalia with its individual buildings. With residential and working places of various social strata, the museum exemplarily draws attention to the differentiated and intertwined social fabric of a former metropolitan area in this region. Walking through the historic streets is enlightening. It is only a few meters to the famous Valepagenhof. It is especially known for the magnificent carvings in the almost unaltered gable front from the year 1577.
Guests who are now making their way back on foot or with a horse-drawn carriage automatically pass by the Gräftenhof from the Münsterland. Its main building, which originates from the Alst community near Albersloh, has been showcasing as a jewel in the museum since 1969. The depicted state around 1800 reveals with large windows featuring lead glazing that the former owner family Schulte wanted to display their wealth. With a length of 42 meters and a width of 15 meters, it is not only the largest Low German hall house in the open-air museum but also, according to LWL, the largest of its kind in Germany.
By the year 2025, the facility, which has been steadily growing since its opening on July 7, 1971, is to become even larger and more attractive to guests: Currently, the LWL is constructing a new entrance and exhibition building for special exhibitions and unique collections. The model project for sustainable building and forward-thinking technologies includes, among other things, three building parts positioned at different levels on the slope, an outdoor staircase, garden facilities, and a viewing platform. It skillfully leads to the square at the Mühlenteich, which is to take on the role of a multifunctional village square.
