The Eierland Lighthouse is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

on the northernmost tip of the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

island of

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of De ...

. It is named for the former island

Eierland Eierland () is a former island in the Netherlands. It is now the northern part of the island of Texel. The name means "egg land", named for the seagull eggs that were collected on the island and sent to Amsterdam. The island of Eierland was a par ...

History

The lighthouse was designed by

Quirinus Harder Quirinus Johan Harder (13 October 1801, in Rotterdam – 21 October 1880, in Vlissingen) was a Dutch architect best known for having designed a large number of lighthouses. He worked as a structural engineer for the Loodswezen, the Dutch organizat ...

and construction began on 25 July 1863. The lighthouse was built on top of a 20-metre high

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

, and was lit on 1 November 1864. At that time, the distance from the lighthouse to the sea was 3 kilometres. Initially the lighthouse had a

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...

lamp. The current (electrical) lamp is a 2000 watt Philips

fluorescent lamp A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet lig ...

, producing 2.85 million

candela The candela ( or ; symbol: cd) is the unit of luminous intensity in the International System of Units (SI). It measures luminous power per unit solid angle emitted by a light source in a particular direction. Luminous intensity is analogous to ...

, and the light is focused with a number of

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

es. It has two automatically engaged spare lamps. The lighthouse was originally red, but in the course of time that colour faded to pink. In 1977 the tower was covered with a red plastic coating. Since 1982 the lighthouse is a

Rijksmonument A rijksmonument (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands ...

. During the

Georgian Uprising of Texel The Georgian uprising on Texel ( nl, Opstand der Georgiërs) (5 April 1945 – 20 May 1945) was an insurrection by the 882nd Infantry Battalion ''Königin Tamara'' ( Queen Tamar or ''Tamara'') of the Georgian Legion of the German Army stationed ...

of April 1945 the lighthouse suffered heavy damage. It was repaired by constructing a new wall around it and a new upper-level construction. In this process the lighthouse lost two of its original nine storeys. During the 1990s the lighthouse, including the very top and the lamp, was open for visitors. Closed for a while, it was reopened in 2009 and is accessible up to the sixth floor.

Gallery

File:Vuurtoren Eierland 1.jpg, Lens File:Vuurtoren Eierland 2.jpg, View to the west File:Vuurtoren Eierland 3.jpg, View to the east (

Vlieland Vlieland (; fry, Flylân) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and island in the northern Netherlands. The municipality of Vlieland is the second most sparsely populated municipality in the Netherlands, after Schiermonnikoog. V ...

) File:Vuurtoren Eierland 4.jpg, Lens and lamp from below File:Vuurtoren Eierland 5.jpg, Space between the old lighthouse and the new enclosure

References

External links

{{Authority control Lighthouses completed in 1864 Lighthouses in North Holland Rijksmonuments in North Holland Tourist attractions in North Holland Texel

History

See also

Gallery

References

External links