Urk Lighthouse is a lighthouse in

Urk Urk () is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the central Netherlands. Urk is first mentioned in historical records dating to the 10th century, when it was still an island in the Zuiderzee, an inland sea that would become par ...

at the eastern banks of the

IJsselmeer The IJsselmeer (; fy, Iselmar, nds-nl, Iesselmeer), also known as Lake IJssel in English, is a closed off inland bay in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland. It covers an area of with an a ...

. From 1617 a coal fire was used for the local fishermen as well as for the ships sailing from Amsterdam to the North Sea. The current lighthouse station was established in 1837. The tower was built in 1845 as a round brick tower attached to a keeper's house. A

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 ...

is still in use. The lighthouse was restored in 1972 and declared a national monument of the Netherlands in 1982. The tower can be visited during guided tours.

References

Urk Lighthouse
Marinas.com * Lighthouses completed in 1845 Lighthouses in the Netherlands Rijksmonuments in Flevoland Tourist attractions in Flevoland Towers in Flevoland Urk {{Netherlands-lighthouse-stub

See also

References