The Butter Factory
From cooperative steam dairy to living in industrial heritage
On the Zuivelweg, in the heart of the De Wiersse estate, stands the former cooperative steam dairy factory. For more than seventy years the milk of the local farmers was processed into butter here. It is a striking piece of industrial heritage, a stone’s throw from the manor house and the gardens.
The De Wiersse estate bought the factory in 2022 to halt vacancy and decay, and to bring living back to this remarkable building. The factory is now a municipal monument. Over the coming years we are creating five homes here, which we intend to issue on long lease (erfpacht).
Living in the dairy factory
A building of this size only stays in good condition if it is truly lived in. That is why we are turning the factory into five self-contained homes, within the existing walls. In this way the heritage is preserved and nothing changes in the surrounding landscape.
Five homes
Three of the five homes in fact already exist and are habitable: the factory’s former service house, a studio in the old horse stable and a spacious, almost single-level apartment. In the front part of the factory, still in a rough state, the last two homes will be created.
Compact and varied
The homes vary in size, from a compact studio to a generous apartment. Smaller homes like these are scarce in the countryside. There is one for those who want to live small, and a single-level home suited to living in for many years. The large factory windows let in plenty of light.
A century of dairy
1896: a butter factory on the estate
In 1896 the owner of De Wiersse made a plot of land available to his tenant farmers to set up a cooperative butter factory together. In January 1897 the first stone was laid, and just four months later the first milk could be processed. It was a small works driven by hand, on the tree-lined Wiersserallee.
From hand power to steam
The milk kept coming and hand power soon could no longer keep up. In 1899 a steam engine arrived, with a boiler house and an engine room. From then on the company was called the Coöperatieve Stoomzuivelfabriek de Wiersse. The milk carriers collected the churns from the farmers by horse and cart. For their horses the cooperative built a stable, which was completely renewed in 1913.
How the butter was made
The fresh milk first passed through the centrifuge, which separated the cream from the skimmed milk. The skimmed milk went back to the farmers as cattle feed. The cream ripened in the cream-souring room and was then beaten, kneaded and washed into butter in large churns. This painting by Ids Wiersma from around 1920 nicely captures the atmosphere of such a dairy cellar.
1937 to 1941: the face of today
Between 1937 and 1941 the factory was thoroughly renewed. The production spaces gained greater height under a flat roof, and the building took on the functional brick architecture it still has today. The 1941 extension is by architect Gerrit Feenstra, who as association architect of the Gelders-Overijsselse Zuivelbond was involved in the building and rebuilding of more than four hundred dairy factories. The present chimney also dates from 1941.
Closure and reuse
Through scaling-up and centralisation in the dairy sector, the factory closed its doors in the early 1970s. After that a chemical works made floor wax and polish here, among other things, while the old office was lived in. Around 2011 the building was given a residential use with a single home and bed-and-breakfast. In 2021 a cannabis nursery was discovered. For the De Wiersse estate this was the reason to buy the building in early 2022 and secure this heritage for the future.
A municipal monument
At the estate’s request, the factory was designated a municipal monument in 2026, together with the horse stable and the chimney. This gives official recognition to the value of this place.
Factory, horse stable and chimney
The factory, the adjacent horse stable, the slender chimney and the former director’s house across the road together form a recognisable ensemble. Standing free in the green countryside, it is a landmark along the Wiersserallee. The horse stable is the oldest still recognisable part and particularly rare.
Rare dairy architecture
It is a fairly intact and rare example of a dairy factory in functional brick architecture. Its building history can still be clearly read from the various parts. Many of the original steel and aluminium windows have been preserved. The early aluminium windows from the 1950s in particular are rare and valuable for the history of building technology.
Historical images and information drawn from the building-history survey of the De Wiersse dairy factory (Tijdbeeld, 2024) and from local archives. Postcard and letterhead around 1900; painting by Ids Wiersma around 1920.