Model of Part of the Timbering of the Dry Dock at Flushing

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-3

Wooden construction model of the timbering of a dry dock, showing the pile foundations and part of the wall.

The dry dock of Flushing was the first dry dock in the Netherlands, designed by the Englishman John Perry (1670-1733) and built from 1704 to 1705 under supervision of Dockmaster Jacob de Roo.¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, nos. 2-3. It was a tidal dock, kept dry using horsepowered chain pumps. However, the lock gates were too narrow and too low, necessitating the outlying basin to be emptied to such a low level, that the ships could not be kept afloat. The dry dock was not used after 1756 and was not repaired until 1836-37, following long delays.²²A model showing the dry dock as it was in 1756 is in the collection of the Zeeuws Maritiem Museum muZEEum in Flushing, inv. no. 2934. During this reparation the lock gates were replaced by a caisson and the dock was equipped with a steam engine. Although graded as a listed building since 1964, the dock was filled in 1974. It was excavated in 2010 and is currently being restored.

This model shows the situation after the repairs of 1837 had been made.³³J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 3.

Scale unknown.

A.E. Tromp, ‘Aanleg en gemaakte veranderingen aan het dok der Marine te Vlissingen en de daar voor liggende grote zeesluis, met vermelding van belangrijke bijzonderheden der constructie en andere’, Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen (1851), pp. 531-78, 791-842; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 3; H.G. van Grol, De geschiedenis der oude havens van Vlissingen, alsmede de invloed van Oranje op hare verdere ontwikkeling, Flushing 1931

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly Rijkswerf Vlissingen, Model of Part of the Timbering of the Dry Dock at Flushing, Flushing, c. 1837', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.242728