Siep&Co
The Siep&Co Foundation is based in a former strawboard factory in Oude Pekela and owns a number of large, partly operational steam and diesel engines dating from the early 20th century. An outdoor turf hut with an interior refers to the former peat extraction industry.
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The Pekela Industrial Heritage Foundation is housed in the oldest factory halls of the former “Free & Co Steam-Strawboard Factory”. It…
The Pekela Industrial Heritage Foundation is housed in the oldest factory halls of the former ‘Free & Co Steam-powered Cardboard Factory’. The authentic machine hall, housing a Stork steam engine with its enormous flywheel dating from 1929, gives you an immediate impression of the noise and clouds of steam that used to accompany the processing of the delivered straw into cardboard. Other machines and components, some of which are on the outdoor grounds, also offer a glimpse into Pekela’s industrial past in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when a total of nine cardboard factories provided livelihoods for 2,000 people, as well as in other industrial sectors such as wine, liqueurs, textiles, potato starch, agricultural machinery, cigars and vehicles. Did you know that the density of industrialisation in Oude Pekela per square kilometre was higher than that of English industrial cities such as Manchester, for example? And that the same factory complex now houses a hemp-processing plant, which, along with its counterpart in Pekel, is the only one of its kind in the Netherlands? And that in the 19th century, seagoing vessels were built along the Pekelder Aa which, together with those from the other peat colonies, sailed not only on the Baltic Sea but also on the Mediterranean? Come and see for yourself – perhaps then you’ll believe it!
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