Fort, vesting en -onderdelen, Werk aan het Spoel Culemborg

English translation

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Description

Cluster 503.

NEW HOLLANDSE WATERLINIE

Introduction

BULLET TRAP / REMNANT RIFLE RANGE, as part of a rifle range set up for the purpose of military training exercises. A ready army required, among other things, a well-trained infantry and artillery. To bring and/or maintain readiness at the required level, rifle ranges were established in many places throughout the country. On historical topographic maps they are sometimes explicitly indicated as such, including northwest of Arnhem, near Amersfoort and at a number of locations in the dune area (including near Bloemendaal). At this latter location even the bullet catcher was indicated. A bullet catcher is a wall or other structure that catches bullets that have missed the target. Bullet traps are similar objects, but with a slightly different purpose: by placing bullet traps - equipped with holes - in precise rows, stray shots could be 'caught'. Most rifle ranges are shown on maps in the form of a number of more or less parallel dotted lines and a small square. An example can be seen on Bonneblad 1:25.000, no. 486, 1932 and/or 1938. This shows a rifle range north of Fort Everdingen. Rifle ranges are part of areas equipped with targets for training in shooting with firearms. Sometimes these also included shelters for materials, such as target sheds for shooting targets. The rifle range at the Werk aan het Spoel does not appear on the Bonnebladen 1:25.000 nor on an aerial photograph from 1930, but there is an aerial photograph from 1945. This clearly shows that the range - oriented from northeast to southwest - consists of two parallel 'targets' of different length and width. The northwestern one is the shortest and widest (approximately 200 m long) and the southeastern one is the longest and narrowest (approximately 300 m long). The aerial photograph shows, in addition to a number of bullet traps and rifle range structures, a large and a small earthwork with hipped roof-shaped contours: bullets were absorbed in these. Both are accompanied on the northwest side by built elements: bullet traps. The smallest bullet trap was maintained after the war; the two earthworks and all other built elements and constructed features were completely removed and are no longer visible in the landscape, while the local land division has also changed significantly. (It has also been suggested that the masonry was incorporated into the earthwork.) The rifle range would date from the 1939 mobilisation period and it remained - whether or not in an expanded form under the German occupation - in use until the end of the Second World War. The bullet trap, executed in brick and concrete, has in the meantime become a fairly rare building type.

Description

BULLET TRAP / REMNANT RIFLE RANGE, as a fairly rare and within the New Hollandse Waterlinie almost unique remnant of a former shooting training facility. At some distance, south of the Werk aan het Spoel, stands in the middle of agricultural land a bullet trap. It is a construction approximately 7 metres high and wide, in brick, with as its base a base executed in the form of an inverted letter W, approximately 2 m wide. This base lies at the foot of two segment-arch-shaped openings with above it a massive rectangular mass, which is executed flat on the north side and which on the south side is reinforced with three pilasters. The bullet trap - or at least the rifle range of which it formed part - would date from 1939; the structure was still intact in 1945. The work was presumably created or fundamentally restored in several phases, as evidenced by the rough concrete foundation and the use of different masonry. In many places wooden components are recognizable in the masonry; the building is largely provided with a cement layer.

Valuation

The BULLET TRAP / REMNANT RIFLE RANGE south of the Werk aan het Spoel is of general importance because of:

* Cultural-historical values as part of the New Hollandse Waterlinie as designed by C.R.T. Kraijenhoff and initially from 1815 realized by him, Jan Blanken and major-engineer Willem Offerhaus and subsequently strengthened and improved by others for approximately 125 years.

* Architectural-historical values in particular as an expression of military-strategic building art, which is based on: a. the system of inundation and accesses (19th century), b. the race with increasingly powerful offensive means (19th and 20th century)

This concerns a component from approximately 1939 that is a rare example of a building executed substantially in brick that served as a bullet trap of a rifle range.

* Ensemble value as part of the New Hollandse Waterlinie. Also because of the functional and physical relationship with the other components of the complex.

* The component is representative (characteristic) because it clearly recognizably represents the former function of bullet trap as part of a rifle range.

* The component is fairly rare because few comparable structures from the same period in this form and in connection with other military works have been preserved.

* The component is fairly well preserved and can still be recognized well in the field as a built element.