Having been a lover of history and archaeology since I was a child, it was no surprise to my friends and family that when I moved to Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 2001 I’d be drawn to the city’s museums. However, there was one museum, the Maritime Museum (Maritiem Museum in Dutch), which was somewhat different and it was this particular collection that attracted me to the extent I ended up living in part of it. But how is it different? Well, firstly, although it has a building which houses a large collection of nautical antiquities, its greatest feature is the several harbours that make up its open air displays.
The principal havenmuseum (harbour museum) is in the Leuvehaven (Bierhaven sector pictured at top) right in the heart of the city. It’s fascinating for adults and children alike because visitors can climb aboard real historic barges and tugboats, as well as watch displays of traditional cranes and harbour machinery at work. Also interesting are the many open workshops where experts demonstrate long-forgotten skills, such as rope-making and riveting, and volunteers restore and maintain items belonging to the harbour’s collection of craft.
But the Leuvenhaven is just one of the museum harbours. There are four more inner city harbours given over to displaying historic barges. The majority of these, including mine, have been converted to liveaboards and are maintained in as close to original condition as possible. Of these four harbours, the Oude Haven contains the most traditional of the barges on display.
The Oude Haven is the oldest harbour in Rotterdam and was also the first museum harbour of its kind in the Netherlands. The idea for designating its use exclusively to traditional craft was first conceived in 1978 by a group of enthusiastic owners with the help and support of the Rotterdam city council.
At that time, the centre of Rotterdam was still undergoing a resurrection, following its virtual obliteration by German bombs in 1940. Unlike the Phoenix of legend, though, it wasn’t re-erected in its previous likeness. At its inception as a museum harbour, the Oude Haven was surrounded by building sites from which emerged the famous Cubist apartment blocks as well as other modern flats. Below these are colourful cafés, bars and restaurants which, with their lively terraces, form a vivid backdrop for the collection of beautiful old Dutch barges. In fact, only the ‘Witte Huis’ – once the tallest office block in Europe – and a short row of gracious, terraced houses remain to remind us of Rotterdam’s pre-war character.
To its west is the Wijnhaven (wine harbour), an extension of the Oude Haven, which is also home to a number of historic barges and is another part of the museum complex. Among the boats moored here are two special barges used as workshops by professional restorers, whose skills include pretty much everything from the traditional technique of riveting to the hand-crafting of lee-boards.
To the east lies the Haringvliet, a mainly residential harbour in which there is a more varied collection of craft ranging from classic yachts to fishing cutters. Although most of these are lived on, some are businesses such as charter ships and even offices. In a nutshell, these harbours effectively make up distinct quarters of a unique kind of settlement.
The barges in the Oude Haven, Wijnhaven and Haringvliet are not open to the public, but the museum authorities have placed information boards about the history of the vessels on the quay in front of their moorings. What visitors will find interesting, though, is the boatyard, the Koningspoort, which has its own slipway in almost continuous use. The yard is probably unique for a museum harbour. If it isn’t, it’s almost certainly the most comprehensive in the Netherlands, and the facilities are booked up for at least a year in advance. Run with business-like efficiency, there’s rarely a day when the slipway is not occupied by a traditional barge or boat; either from the havenmuseum complex, or from other parts of the country. To maintain the historic harbour concept, owners wishing to use the slipway are required to have a hull of at least fifty years old, although older is preferred; preferably, pre-Second World War.
On the Koningspoort yard itself, staff operate a traditional crane for lifting and moving heavy items, which is always fascinating to watch. There are also workshops available to the slipway occupants to help them with their restoration projects.
The vessels represented in the museum are a wonderful testament to the trading history and wealth of the Netherlands. The Oude Haven itself contains quite a mixed bag of craft and is the principal restoration area. Among them there are several klippers and tjalks. Most of these are finished or near-finished projects, and retain their place here by virtue of the fact they are the basis on which Dutch maritime wealth was built. The scene changes week by week, however, as boats come and go and, of course, there is often a visiting barge awaiting its spell on the slipway.
The Wijnhaven is mainly designated for the larger motor barges and, apart from the two work ships, there are several other historic barges. The Haringvliet is a sort of ‘fall-out’ area in that most of the barges are no longer eligible for the other two harbours, because they are not completely authentic. That said, many of them are sympathetically and beautifully restored and it is lovely to do a circuit of the quays, simply to enjoy seeing the variety of gorgeous old craft.
I’ve lived in the Oude Haven since 2001 and never tire of watching the activities in the harbours and on the yard. It is a wonderful place to visit and draws families, photographers and fans of maritime history from around the world. All the same, it is constantly under threat from developers and only two years ago, we were awaiting a decision as to whether the Oude Haven would be sold and we would all have to leave. Luckily, public opinion was so strongly in support of retaining it as an important part of the city’s heritage, the proposal to sell it was rejected. But, and this is important, it needs continued public support to keep it alive. As a result, I hope that despite the devastation of the pandemic and the forced closure of museums, Rotterdam’s open air Maritime Museum harbours will continue to appeal to visitors of all ages and from every part of the world.
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Val Poore was born and raised in England but at the end of 1981, she moved to South Africa where she and her family lived for nearly twenty years. She loved South Africa, but returned to Europe in 2001. Since then, she’s been working as a freelance ESL writing skills teacher in the Netherlands. Val shares her time between a 123-year-old barge in Rotterdam’s Oude Haven and a cottage in Zeeland. She has written two memoirs about living in the Netherlands’ foremost museum harbour, as well as several other books.