The disappeared city: The Overtoom as a day of entertainment

The Overtoom is now a busy arterial road in and out of the city. But that was no different in earlier times, only the Overtoom was a maritime junction. With the damping of the Overtoomse Vaart, this came to an end more than a hundred years ago.

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persuasion

At the end of the current Overtoom there is still water: there the Kosterverloren Vaart changes into the Schinkel. In the 15th century, boats could reach the Haarlemmermeer via the Schinkel and the Nieuwe Meer. You could actually get anywhere in Holland via the Haarlemmermeer. And that was a thorn in the side of the Count of Holland. He wanted the Amsterdam ships to sail over Haarlem because tolls had to be paid there. That is why he had a dike built in the Schinkel. The new waterway had to be blocked. “But that was of course inconvenient,” explains Tim Streefkerk. He is a curator at the Maritime Museum. “The horticulturists were no longer able to enter the city with their products. That is why permission was granted to make a small overtoom.”

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At a small overtoom, the ships were pulled over the dike with sheer manpower. In the case of a large overtoom, this was done with a wheel and a kind of slide, so that larger boats could also be persuaded.

Streefkerk: “They were very cramped in Haarlem that the shipping route where tolls were levied would still be bypassed. So a very simple overtoom had to come here. Without aids. But you can actually see that within a few years it will be very busy here with ships.”

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entertainment

The dam in the Schinkel also attracts a lot of attention. It was a beautiful sight to see such a team of tough men pull a ship over the dam. On the other side of the dam was also the boarding point for barges that transported people to other cities.

Streefkerk: “Those ships were often too big to be pulled over the overwater. It did happen. And of course people came to that too. It must have been a great spectacle. Heaps of shouting. Guys falling. Pulling ropes. Ships that just shoot off. So you see that in the seventeenth century around the overtoom all inns come. People came here to have a nice day.”

The Bonte Os

One of the last remaining inns from that time is De Bonte Os. “Initially it was an inn,” says Tim Streefkerk. “Later it also got the function of a ferry house where the ferry services could be arranged.” In the 1960s, the dilapidated ferry house was officially listed as a monument and restored to its former glory.

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No more privileges

“That persuasion continued into the French era,” explains curator Anton Wegman. “A lock was only built around 1810. The French wanted to get rid of all those inspections, tolls and privileges. That hindered transport through the Netherlands.”

An attempt was made to give a new impulse to shipping, which was then in crisis. In addition to a lock, there will also be a bridge at the Overtoom. In the beginning a wooden bridge, later a metal bridge and only after the war a drawbridge was built. The lock was removed during the Second World War.

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