Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: West-Friesland

Kolhorn - picturesquely located behind a dike - is surrounded by a sea of green meadows. It is hard to imagine that the village was once a fishing village beside the (former) Zuiderzee. The village of “Colhorn”, as it was called in 1573, was located on the Zuiderzee until 1844. Due to the creation of some polders it now lies at the heart of the West-Frisian landscape and about 20 kilometers inland. Kolhorn is mentioned for the first time in 1288. But probably it refers to the mooring place, a small harbour which was so called at the location where later the village arose. The first mention as a village is in 1518 when it is called “Kolhoiren”, although the church bell in the belfry dates back to 1418 and may indicate that the village has existed at least since then. Kolhorn nowadays is a Dutch protected village-scape.

Vier Noorder Koggen is pumping station, which was built in 1869 to support the existing windmills in draining the water out of the land. As the land in this part of the country is about three meters lower than the average sealevel. When it was no longer possible to drain the land at low tide, the Dutch started to use windmills. But WINDmills need wind, which is not always available. Around 1850 steam power became affordable and soon steam power turned out to be cheaper than maintaining a mill. From 1869 on the auxiliary pumping station was built; just to pump when the mills could not. In 1897 the paddle wheels and archimedean screw pumps were replaced by four centrifugal pumps (two of those are still present in the building), which were replaced by two electric motors, in 1940. In 1907 the building was enlarged and a big pump was installed, driven by a gas engine. This made 15 windmills redundant. This gas engine did not satisfy and was replaced by a steam engine in 1924. The big pump still functions and can drain 450.000 liters of water a minute. The steam engines operated until the completion of an electric pumping station at Wervershoof in 1975. Nowadays the Vier Noorder Koggen houses the Nederlands Stoommachine Museum , a steam engine museum, which opened its doors in 1985. The museum features a large collection of steam engines, indoors as well as outdoors. During our visit some of the engines worked (on steam).