City Centre, Waterhof

Abstract

The Waterhof Estate houses a very interesting and extremely well preserved bell. Above the shoulder are three moulding rings followed by two more just below the shoulder. Then a small decorative band followed by a reference to the founder. It reads L: HAVERKAMP ME FECIT HORNAE 1788. Then a much broader decorative band with hanging leaves. Four thick moulding wires are seen just above the knee and three thinner ones on the lip. The bell hangs in a circular hole on the side of the main entrance to the house. For its age and realizing the bell hangs outside, it is in extremely good condition. At the end of 1779 Leonardus Haverkamp, who originated from Amsterdam as a son of a clergyman, bought a foundry from J F Bagge in Hoorn, a city in the North of the Neherlands. The name of the city is best known for the Cape Horn at the Southern tip of the South-American continent. Haverkamp’s foundry was most productive in the period 1779 to 1790. Haverkamp died in Hoorn at the end of 1806 and the foundry was sold to P J Meurling who transformed the foundy into a warehouse. At the moment there are some 15 bells of Haverkamp to be found in the two provinces Friesland and North-Holland. One is on show in the bell museum that is attached to the Koninklijke Eijsbouts Foundry in Asten, the Netherlands. Many of the other bells have been confiscated by the German invasion in 1943. We also discovered two bells from the foundry in England, suggesting that the founder was active in exporting bells outside his country. It is not clear how the bell ended up in Waterhof. According to some pictures the bell was not there before 1923. Most probably the bell was acquired by Mrs Klink when she owned and extensively remodeled the house in the period 1956 to 1974.