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Bastionder is a small military museum and information center built into Bastion 'Oranje' in
At the time Bastion Oranje was a polygonal bastion much like the others, except that its name referred to the city's new masters. The walls were two meters thick, and the bastion was built to mount heavy artillery. It was built around the old medieval tower; though this practice was not unusual at the time, few examples still survive today. Later, the bastion would serve as the base for a windmill, a very common feature of city walls. In the early nineteenth century, an oil mill and floor factory with a 65-hp steam engine were built on the bastion.
After 1874, the bastion was no longer needed as a defensive work. It could not simply be demolished because the city walls functioned as a dike, as they still do today. In 1885, the municipality bought the grounds of the Bastion Oranje, and the factory was demolished. In 1888, about 2,000 m3 of the earth was removed from the bastion in order to create the small park it holds today. The park, with large trees and a view over the Bossche Broek nature reserve, still attracts many visitors due to its proximity to the city center.
Over the years, a number of old cannons were placed in the park. One of these guns was the unique 'Stuerghewalt' or 'Boze Griet' gun, which is mounted on two small stones rather than the gun-carriages used for most other guns. While this may appear to be a relic of the old defensive position, it is actually a modern addition; the bastion was originally covered by an earth wall with gun emplacements, which was removed in 1888. Furthermore, guns were not left to corrode on the walls but were only placed there when the enemy approached. The comparable nearby Bastion 'Sint Antonie' shows the upper structure and gun emplacements that have been removed from Bastion Oranje.
The Bastionder project originally aimed to display the tower and part of the city wall in an underground visitor center called Bastionder. The tower in question had been pulled down and filled with sand around 1590 so that guns could be placed on top of it. Old maps showed that the old tower had been left in place after the construction of Bastion Oranje, and preliminary excavations found it in relatively good condition at the corner of the city walls. A stair and three gun ports were also found in the tower. One of these late medieval gun ports, which had a saw profile to stop bullets from ricocheting inwards, has been re-opened as an example for visitors to see.
The name 'Bastionder' is a portmanteau of the Dutch words 'Bastion' and 'Onder' (under). The project excavated part of the underground area between the bastion's walls and the old city wall, covering it with a
The 'Stuerghewalt' or 'Boze Griet' long cannon, located inside the Bastionder, is a large
's-Hertogenbosch
s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a city and municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 157,486. It is the capital of the province of North Brabant and its fourth largest by population. The city is south of th ...
, the Netherlands.
Bastion Oranje
The Bastionder's first exhibit, the Bastion Oranje, was built in 1634 by theDutch Republic
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
after they conquered 's-Hertogenbosch in 1629. The Republic's subsequent review of the defense of 's-Hertogenbosch found that the distance between the two existing bastions - the 'Vught' and 'Baselaar' bastions - was too great to be defended only by the late-fourteenth-century tower located at the corner of the city wall, so they decided to add the Bastion 'Oranje'.
At the time Bastion Oranje was a polygonal bastion much like the others, except that its name referred to the city's new masters. The walls were two meters thick, and the bastion was built to mount heavy artillery. It was built around the old medieval tower; though this practice was not unusual at the time, few examples still survive today. Later, the bastion would serve as the base for a windmill, a very common feature of city walls. In the early nineteenth century, an oil mill and floor factory with a 65-hp steam engine were built on the bastion.
After 1874, the bastion was no longer needed as a defensive work. It could not simply be demolished because the city walls functioned as a dike, as they still do today. In 1885, the municipality bought the grounds of the Bastion Oranje, and the factory was demolished. In 1888, about 2,000 m3 of the earth was removed from the bastion in order to create the small park it holds today. The park, with large trees and a view over the Bossche Broek nature reserve, still attracts many visitors due to its proximity to the city center.
Over the years, a number of old cannons were placed in the park. One of these guns was the unique 'Stuerghewalt' or 'Boze Griet' gun, which is mounted on two small stones rather than the gun-carriages used for most other guns. While this may appear to be a relic of the old defensive position, it is actually a modern addition; the bastion was originally covered by an earth wall with gun emplacements, which was removed in 1888. Furthermore, guns were not left to corrode on the walls but were only placed there when the enemy approached. The comparable nearby Bastion 'Sint Antonie' shows the upper structure and gun emplacements that have been removed from Bastion Oranje.
Bastionder
The Bastionder project originally aimed to display the tower and part of the city wall in an underground visitor center called Bastionder. The tower in question had been pulled down and filled with sand around 1590 so that guns could be placed on top of it. Old maps showed that the old tower had been left in place after the construction of Bastion Oranje, and preliminary excavations found it in relatively good condition at the corner of the city walls. A stair and three gun ports were also found in the tower. One of these late medieval gun ports, which had a saw profile to stop bullets from ricocheting inwards, has been re-opened as an example for visitors to see.
The name 'Bastionder' is a portmanteau of the Dutch words 'Bastion' and 'Onder' (under). The project excavated part of the underground area between the bastion's walls and the old city wall, covering it with a weathering steel
Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable r ...
and concrete roof with some windows. One of the requirements for the Bastionder was that it should disturb the existing park as little as possible. To meet this requirement, the roof only rises above ground level enough to provide a visitors' entrance. The roof is also covered with grass planted with crocus
''Crocus'' (; plural: crocuses or croci) is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms. They are low growing plants, whose flower stems remain under ...
es, making it look like part of the park.
The construction created a substantial space for visitors to see the old city wall and tower. Some informational signs and a video presentation about the history of fortress 's-Hertogenbosch were added, creating a small visitor center. It is a convenient start/endpoint for city walks, expeditions to the Bossche Broek, and for popular boat trips on the Binnendieze
Binnendieze is the common name for all rivers and canals inside the city walls of 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. It is a major tourist attraction. Near the north-west tip of the city walls, the confluence of the Binnendieze with the rivers ...
. What makes the Bastionder a museum is that, apart from the buildings themselves, it exhibits exactly one artifact: the unique wrought-iron cannon 'Stuerghewalt' cannon, also known as 'Boze Griet'.
Stuerghewalt
The 'Stuerghewalt' or 'Boze Griet' long cannon, located inside the Bastionder, is a large wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...
cannon. As such, it is unique in the Netherlands and very rare in Europe. Its unusual production method is visible in the many-sided shape of the barrel, a result of using wrought iron instead of cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impur ...
. It dates from 1511-1512 when cast guns were only made from bronze. The first cast-iron cannon in Europe was made in 1543.
Stuerghewalt is the longest surviving medieval or early modern cannon in Europe. It also happens to be the only surviving wrought iron cannon in the Netherlands.
The cannon's name, 'Stuerghewalt' ('Stoer geweld' in modern Dutch), means something like 'rough violence'. Its other name, 'Boze Griet', translates roughly to 'furious girl'. "Griet', or girl, was a common feature of gun names at the time; other examples include Ghent's Dulle Griet
The Dulle Griet ("Mad Meg", named after the Flemish folklore figure Dull Gret) is a medieval large-calibre gun founded in Gent (Ghent).
History
Three cannons were founded: one resides now in Edinburgh and is called "Mons Meg", and the last ...
or 'mad wife', which shares a name with Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting Dull Gret
''Dulle Griet'' (anglicized as ''Dull Gret''), also known as ''Mad Meg'', is a figure of Flemish folklore who is the subject of a 1563 oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a virago, Dulle Gr ...
.
References
External links
* {{official website, url=https://www.erfgoedshertogenbosch.nl/contact/bezoeken/bastionder/ Museums in 's-Hertogenbosch