Continue on the ‘Vest’ and turn right via ‘de Bogen’ to the ‘Veerstal’. 

First side street at the left is the Peperstraat. On this spot a small fulling Mill was built in 1620 to ‘full’ wool as part of the textile industry. To produce a firmer texture manpower was used literally by letting people walk over the fabric.

In 1414 a sluice gate was constructed between the canal in the ‘Peperstraat’ and the river Hollandsche IJssel, through the dyke. On top of this gate a small fulling mill was placed. 

The mill used the tide of the river, running on the flows of the water due to the tide differences. That’s the difference with a traditional water mill, which runs on a water wheel outdoors. In the fulling mill the water wheel is placed indoors. The gate was larger than the water wheel. This enabled a multi purpose usage of the mill, because there was space for flushing water flows to clean the water in the many canals in town. In approx. 1625 the fulling mill got company, a malt mill was built to process malt to facilitate the many breweries in Gouda in the 17th century. The small fulling mill was taken down in 1941.