The grain silos in the port of Assen, Hekmans Boô in Schoonebeek, the artwork Broken Circle/Spiral Hill in a sand excavation near Emmen, the Holthersluis near Beilen, the polder pumping station at Peize, De Berk mill and the ‘small’ radio-telescope near Dwingeloo.
What do they have in common? They are all new protected provincial monuments. Every Sunday we put one in the spotlight.
It now lies unemployed in the landscape just outside Beilen: the complex of the Holthersluis. Schutsluis, pumping station and a guardhouse. In half a century of pressure, until now sailed in disuse and decline, overtaken by progress. Only the pumping station is still in operation.
De Schutsluis is the Oldest (1925) and was needed for shipping on the Linthorst Homankanaal: the connection between the Beilervaart and the extended Hoogeveense Vaart near Noordscheschut. The channel was created for a better connection to the center of Drenthe and for the extraction of many wild land to agricultural land and production forests.
Also an important reason for the construction: the navigation connection between Hoogeveen and Assen became 21 kilometers shorter in one fell swoop. Jan Wessels from the Historical Association Beilen: “As a result, ships were able to enter now. The original plan contained three locks, it became one. That was very favorable for shipping.”
For comparison: in the ‘old’ route via the Hoogeveense Vaart and the Drentse Hoofdvaart, twelve locks had to be passed. After the opening in 1926, 1,200 ships already sailed through the Holthersluis in the first year. The route from Zuid-Drenthe to Friesland also became shorter.
“More and more peat workers in Southeast Drenthe became unemployed because of the rise of coal for heating houses and running factories,” Hans Buikema of the historical association looks back. “The construction of the Linthorst Homankanaal was therefore a job creation project for unemployed peat workers. Between 500 and 800 men, between 1923 and 1926, dug seventeen kilometers of channel with shovel and wheelbarrow.” Part of the excavation work went through tough, stone -rich boulder clay.
In 1929, the central government was established the waste processing company VARD drift Maatschappij VAM (nowadays Attero) near Wijster. Purpose: to bring household waste from the Randstad to areas with sparse soil and compost there. This compost could be used for soil improvement and reclamation projects. The presence of the Linthorst Homankanaal was one of the reasons for building the VAM in Wijster. A three -kilometer side channel was dug between the waste processing company and the Linthorst Homankanaal (1931).
Especially in the early years, the VAM channel and the Homankanaal Linthort sailed many ships with compost to all parts of Drenthe to provide the fields with new reclamations and the peat colonies with fertilizers.
But the development of roads and trucks went fast in half a century. More and more transport disappeared from the water to the road. In 1969, only 245 ships were running through the Holthersluis. In 1970 the canal closed for shipping and the Beilen-Nieuweroord water board was closed. The lock became a weir.
The Reest and Wieden Water Board then alluded to new functions for the lock in 2008. The lockkolk could become a fish staircase so that fish from the low side of the channel to the high abilities and vice versa. Or making the channel for canoes and boats accessible again for a new district of Beilen. There was even family playing on the provincial ambition of the time to make closed waterways suitable for the (recreation) shipping again. Nothing of all this was done.
Reest and Wieden also concluded in 2008: “The lock is needed to renovation.” That is still the case now. The lock doors are now so bad that they can no longer even function as weir or water drainage. The Drents Overijsselse Delta Water Board wants to renovate the lock complex for 2.5 million euros while retaining the cultural -historical values. There is also finally a fish passage. Now that it is a provincial monument, the water board can also turn to the province for a subsidy for renovation of the heritage, an amount of 60,000 euros.