Tippelskotten

Tippelskotten is a former grinding mill in Wuppertal-Ronsdorf, set in the valley of the Gelpe stream about 175 metres upstream from the vanished Jasperskotten. The site survives as a protected archaeological monument, its stone walls and water channels still faintly visible in the landscape. A low earth dam, roughly a metre high, holds back a silted pond whose reddish iron-rich mud marks where the hammer pond once stood. The upper ditch, about half a metre wide, curves down to feed the pond, while the lower ditch carries water away unseen beneath a barrel-vaulted culvert. Fragments of red-grey sandstone masonry lie scattered behind the dam, built in rough-hewn style from stone quarried nearby.

The place is worth visiting for the clear traces of an 18th-century industrial site that once powered four grinding wheels and a polishing disc. Records show the mill was first mentioned in 1607 as the Schleipkotten of Godthartz heirs, though it may be older. By 1768 it held a full licence, and in the 1830s the Jansen family ran it with a single hired hand, making drills and small tools. Later owners expanded output: Carl Noltzen added more wheels, yet water shortages often shut the works from May to November. The last operator, Gustav Pickart, closed in 1895 and the building was demolished in 1913.

Visitors find the dam and its overgrown embankment beside the Gelpe. The pond’s edges reveal rust-coloured sludge where iron-rich water once settled. Behind the dam, low walls of sandstone stand among nettles and brambles, marking the mill’s footprint. A short walk upstream brings the remains of the Jasperskotten, another protected ruin, linked by the same water system. The valley floor is quiet now, but the stonework and ditches tell how water once drove industry here for three centuries.