The Museum De Cruquius (or Cruquiusmuseum) occupies the old
Cruquius steam
pumping station
Pumping stations, also called pumphouses, are public utility buildings containing pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are critical in a variety of infrastructure systems, such as water supply, Land reclamation, ...
in
Cruquius, the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
. It derives its name from
Nicolaas Kruik (1678–1754), a Dutch land-surveyor and one of many promoters of a plan to pump the
Haarlemmermeer
Haarlemmermeer () is a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland. Haarlemmermeer is a polder, consisting of land reclaimed from water. The ...
(Haarlem lake) dry. Like many well-educated men of his time, he
latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
ized his name to Nicolaus Samuel Cruquius. During his lifetime the issue of the Haarlem Lake and how to pump it dry was international news, as the following excerpt from the
Virginia Gazette on 31 May 1751 illustrates:
:"''By a private letter from Rotterdam, we are told, that the Dutch Engineers, in their Plan for draining the lake of Haerlem, proposed to employ 150 mills for three Years, and had computed the Expence at a Million and Half of Florins, but that a German, who had been long employed in the Mines of Hungary and Hartz, had proposed to drain it with 50 machines, in 15 months, at a far less Expence; and that he has been ordered to erect one of those Machines, which, if it shall be found to execute what he has asserted, his Proposal will be immediately accepted.''"
Even 50 machines proved too expensive, so it was not until successful experiments with
steam
Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
pumping stations, such as at nearby
Groenendaal park in 1781, that serious plans resulted in three steam-driven pumping stations being established. As a tribute to former planners, the pumping stations of the Haarlemmermeer were named after them:
Leeghwater,
Lynden and Cruquius.
Cruquius was positioned at the mouth of the
Spaarne river, near
Heemstede
Heemstede () is a town and a municipality in the Western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. In 2021, it had a population of 27,545. Located just south of the city of Haarlem on the border with South Holland, it is one of the richest ...
. To service the mill, the workers who lived there founded the town of the same name. The dike was built in the 1840s, the pump started work in 1850 and in the three years that had been predicted a century before, the Haarlem lake was pumped dry. The pumping station Cruquius continued to work on and off until 1933, when it was made into a museum. The foreman's house was made into a café which it still is today.
Heritage site
The pump house at Cruquius is a Netherlands '
Rijksmonument' for the historical engine. It has also been declared an Anchor Point of ERIH, The
European Route of Industrial Heritage.
Cruquius is thought to be the largest
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
– and certainly the largest
beam engine
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead Beam (structure), beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used b ...
– ever built. The engine was built by
Harvey & Co, of
Hayle
Hayle (, "estuary") is a port town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated at the mouth of the Hayle River (which discharges into St Ives Bay) and is approximately northeast of ...
,
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
.
It is an annular-
compound steam engine
A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages.
A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure (HP) cylinder, then having given up heat ...
, with two cylinders (one within the other).
The diameter of the inner (High Pressure) cylinder is ; the diameter of the outer (Low Pressure) annular cylinder is .
Outside, the
ringvaart canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...
's system of
sluices, mills, and
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...
s, are all part of the
Stelling van Amsterdam, the main
dike of which runs just north of
Cruquius, through
Vijfhuizen.
Fort Vijfhuizen
Fort Vijfhuizen is one of forty-two forts in the Stelling van Amsterdam, Defense Line of Amsterdam (Dutch: ''stelling van Amsterdam''), a World Heritage Site. It is located in the town of Vijfhuizen on the ''ringvaart'' which surrounds the Haarle ...
is used for art exhibitions and is a short walk north of the museum along the
ringvaart. What is less known is that there is also a fort Cruquius, just south of the museum, that also has World Heritage status because of its link to the Stelling van Amsterdam.
The Cruquius Pumping Station was named a
Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing edu ...
in 1991.
References
External links
Museum De Cruquius – ''official website''
– ''includes comprehensive details of the steam engine's design, operation and restoration; video clips of the engine in action; 3D computer simulations of the mechanism operating; photos, technical drawings, and more.''
{{Authority control
European Route of Industrial Heritage Anchor Points
Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks
Cruquius, Museum De
Industry museums in the Netherlands
World Heritage Sites in the Netherlands
Former pumping stations
Water supply pumping stations
Cruquius
Cruquius
Steam museums
Museums in North Holland
Rijksmonuments in Haarlemmermeer