My
visit to Sint Philipsland has a bit of an exploration into the unknown,
as I was never there before. Of all the islands described on this site
Sint Philipsland and its neighbor Tholen, with which it merged into a
newly formed municipality in 1995, are the only ones where I never set
foot on before the start of this project.
That is not very hard to understand, when you look at the map of the
southwestern part of the Netherlands. Sint Philipsland, a peninsula
since 1884 already, lies there as a blind appendage that protrudes from
the mainland of Noord-Brabant into the delta area of Zeeland like a big
toe. A true far-off corner, where you will not end up accidentally, but
only if you have business to be there. And, in fact, there's not much
business at all. A couple of polders surrounded by a dike, two villages
and that's it.
But there were times when things were different. Before the dams and the
bridges
of the Delta Project were built Sint Philipsland was the main gateway to the much
larger neighboring island of Schouwen-Duiveland, which was still a real
island by then, only accessible by boat. A dead straight highway led
from the mainland to the ferry of Anna Jacobapolder - Zijpe, one of the
busiest ferry services in the area. In only ten minutes the ferry would
bring you across.
Since 1988 you can drive to Schouwen-Duiveland via the Philipsdam and the Grevelingendam, passing over Sint Philipsland in both
senses of the word. The ferry service was discontinued and since then it has
become quiet here, very quiet.
The perpetual struggle against the water
Living
on an island in the lowlands of the Netherlands is a guarantee for a long
history of struggling against the water. But here, in the delta of the
rivers Rhine, Maas and Scheldt, that struggle has always been a bit harder
than on most of the islands elsewhere in this country. That was shown
during the most recent flood disaster of 1953, when more than 1800 people
perished in this area while, on the other hand, places like the Wadden
islands in the north of the country hardly suffered any problem. It's no
coincidence that the arms of the province of Zeeland, to which the greater
part of the delta area belongs, shows a lion emerging from the waves, with
the motto "Luctor et
emergo" (I struggle and come up).
In the course of the centuries man has wrested the Zeeland islands,
nowadays all linked together and to the mainland by means of dams, bridges
and tunnels, meter by meter from the sea. It always started with building
a dike around a shallow in one of the many inlets, that had become more or
less permanently clear of the water as a result of many years' deposition.
When the polder thus created had been brought under cultivation, an
adjacent piece of land outside the dike, as soon as it had become high
enough to stand clear of the water at high tide, was diked in to add a new
polder to the island. As a result, the islands grew larger and closer to
each other.
The more land was reclaimed, the less room remained for the water. The
sea, however, does not let itself shackle by man just like that.
Frequently the sea combined with the storm to throw themselves upon the
vulnerable archipelago, often resulting in disastrous floods. In some
cases land that had been painfully reclaimed during many years had to be
abandoned to the sea permanently. As a result, the map of this area has
changed in appearance dramatically over the centuries. It's a map that was
drawn by the struggle of man against nature.
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Sint
Philipsland
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The
history of Sint Philipsland fits perfectly well in this picture. The first
diking took place in 1487 here, in the area of the present village of Sint
Philipsland. The for it initiative was taken by Anna of Burgundy, who was
married to Adriaan van Borssele, member of Zeeland aristocracy. She was a
illegitimate daughter of Philip the Good and plausibly she wished to honor
her father, who died twenty years earlier, when naming the new land. That
the church that was built in the polder was dedicated to Saint Philip the
Apostle will not be a coincidence either, nor will be the fact that the
coat of arms of Sint Philipsland shows a certain resemblance with that of
the Burgundians.
The new land was not granted a long life as in 1530, during the Saint
Felix flood ('Quade Saterdach' or Bad Saturday) the dikes broke on several
places and the whole polder was inundated. The village was completely
destroyed and twenty citizens drowned. However, the damage was repaired,
but hardly two years later a new storm surge struck the island and all the
work was nullified again. Sint Philipsland was then abandoned and left to
the sea.
It
took more than a century before a new attempt was made to reclaim Sint
Philipsland from the sea again. Under the direction of the dike warden
Johan Liens of Tholen the Oudepolder (Old polder) was diked in 1645 and
the present village of Sint Philipsland was established. In the course of
the next three centuries five more polders were diked in and added to the
island, the last one in 1935, giving it its present size. In 1884 the
Slaak, the inlet that separated the island from the mainland, was dammed.
It made Sint Philipsland the second of the Zeeland islands that became a
peninsula, after Zuid-Beveland had already been riveted to the mainland in
1867 as a result of the construction of the railroad from Bergen op Zoom
to Vlissingen. In 1907 additional parts of the Slaak were impoldered to create
the Prins Hendrikpolder and giving the former island its present shape.
With the completion of the Philipsdam in 1988 Sint Philipsland was opened
up from the west and it got a direct road connection with the neighboring
islands of Schouwen-Duiveland and Goeree-Overflakkee. The Philipsdam was a
further addition to the original Delta
Project of 1954 and a result of the political decision taken in 1976 to
close the Oosterschelde inlet with a permeable storm surge barrier instead
of with a solid dam, in order to preserve the unique tidal environment
here. But to ensure sufficient tidal movement in the Oosterschelde it was
necessary to reduce the inlet's size considerably, which was realized by
building the Philipsdam at its eastern end. Nowadays, this dam separates
the saltwater tidal environment of the Oosterschelde from the freshwater
environment of the Volkerak inlet.
Remarkably enough, at the east side of Sint Philipsland the situation of
before 1884 has been more or less restored with the construction of the
Schelde-Rijnkanaal (Scheldt-Rhine Canal), the new shipping route from the
Antwerp docks to Rotterdam and the Rhine. The 120 meter-wide canal, which
was built between 1967 and 1976 at the expense of the Belgian tax payer,
cuts through the former Slaakdam and the Prins Hendrikpolder, separating
Sint Philipsland from the mainland again. Anyhow, it will never be a
real island again like it was in older days.
Sint
Philipsland
in the 'Digital Replica of the Netherlands'
by TerraDesk.
A day on Sint Philipsland
My
trip to Sint Philipsland, or Flupland as the local people call it, is by car. Out of sheer necessity, as since the
closure of the ferry service Anna Jacobapolder - Zijpe in 1988 you can't
get there by boat anymore. That's to say, if you ignore the tourist foot-
and bike-passenger ferry which - only in July and August - makes eight
crossings a day between Sint Philipsland and Schouwen-Duiveland. I must
admit, however, that the approach via the Philipsdam, very popular among
bird spotters and for that reason nicknamed 'Birds Boulevard', and the impressive
Krammer locks does have a certain style. So I'm easily persuaded to take
the exit to the view tower near the locks complex before actually setting
foot on Sint Philipsland.
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It is a good climb to the platform on the top of the massive concrete view tower, but I am rewarded with a splendid view of the Philipsdam, the vast locks complex, the neighboring nature reserve 'De Slikken van de Heen' and the islands of Sint Philipsland, Goeree-Overflakkee and Schouwen- Duiveland. Here it becomes clearly visible how the Dutch have forced the unpredictable delta area to their will. |
< click on an image to enlarge
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The Krammer locks complex was built between 1977 and 1984 on an artificial island on the 'Plaat van Vliet', a former shallow in the Krammer inlet, which explains its name. The locks were essential to ensure that shipping traffic would be possible between the open water of the Oosterschelde and the inland waters of the northern delta area after the completion of the Philipsdam. This used to be an important shipping route. |
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Probably you can't tell it by the look of it, but the locks incorporate
some technological features to avoid that during the lockage of ships
significant quantities of fresh water from the Krammer are flowing into
the saltwater environment of the Oosterschelde, or vice versa. A
complicating factor is that the water levels in the Oosterschelde vary
with the tide, while the level at the other side of the dam is fixed, and
that ships must be able to pass the locks regardless of whether the tide
in the Oosterschelde is in or out.
That's why the locks incorporate an inventive piping system to pump off
water from the lock chambers while salt water is let in at the same time,
or the other way around. The engineers made smartly use of the fact that
the specific gravity of salt water is higher than that of fresh water,
which causes the fresh water layer to float on top of the salt water
below. To ensure that enough salt water can be let in when the tide is out
in the Oosterschelde, and enough fresh water at high tide, large
reservoirs have been built that are maintained at the required level by
pumping-engines.
After my little excursion to the Krammer locks I drive further down the
Philipsdam. At the crossing of National Highway N657 with the Schelde-
Rijnkanaal I turn right. After only a few hundred meters an ugly concrete
water tower marks the exit to the village of Sint Philipsland, where I
will certainly like to have a look. It turns out to be a lovely, still
place with a shadowy little village square and the Reformed church, dating
from 1668, nicely situated in the middle of it. A modest memorial reminds
of the nine inhabitants who perished during the flood disaster of 1953.
The old dike of the Oudepolder (Old Polder), the very first polder that
was created here and that therefore can be seen as the island's core, now
runs right through the village, cutting off the newly built part from the
original center. To make traffic between the two parts a bit easier a
little tunnel has been made through the dike. For Dutch that is a pretty
odd sight, a dike with such a huge hole in it!
The most prominent eye-catcher of the village is the flour mill 'De Hoop'
(The Hope), standing on top of the sea dike. It's an octagonal smock mill
that was built in 1724, replacing an older one. Until 1969 it was actually
in use for the milling of grain. In 1971 the mill, which was in a bad
condition by then, was acquired by the Municipality and subsequently
restored. Since then it is frequently running again. In 1980 the dike on
which the mill stands had to be heightened in order to comply with the
latest safety regulations, and a spectacular operation was carried out to
lever up the mill for more than one meter.
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After a short walk around this modest village I get in the car again and
turn onto the Rijksweg (Highway) that runs dead straight, as if it was
drawn along a ruler, across the island, to end at the ferry landing. The
road looks deserted. That used to be different in older days, before 1988
to be precise. The ferry service Anna Jacobapolder - Zijpe was a vital
link in the connection between the island of Schouwen-Duiveland and the
mainland, resulting in comings and goings of travelers. Between 1900 and
1953 there was even a steam tram service running from Steenbergen in
Noord-Brabant to Brouwershaven on Schouwen-Duiveland. Now the ferry
service is gone and traffic has found alternative ways, the former
arterial road has become redundant and quiet. Some kind of Route 66-
feeling is coming over me here.
For almost every Dutchman of around thirty years of age and older the
names Anna Jacobapolder and Zijpe sound quite familiar, because they
occurred very frequently in the news bulletins on radio and TV. That
happened when the ferry service was suspended again because of storm, fog,
floating ice, too high or - on the contrary - too low water levels, so
often that you began to wonder if there were times when the ferry was in
operation indeed.
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The
flag of |
The
ride along the dead straight Rijksweg takes five minutes. The road comes
to a sudden end at the former ferry landing on the westernmost point of
the island, as it ought to do. The place does have some Land's End
atmosphere, Sint Philipsland's End in this case. But what surprises me a
bit is how close Schouwen-Duiveland actually is. The Zijpe, the inlet that
separates the two islands, is hardly five hundred meters wide here. How
can it be that this friendly looking stretch of water so often became an insurmountable
obstacle in the past?
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When I look at the relaxed, sun-tanned skippers on their pleasure yachts sailing by I realize that, before the delta dams were built, this was hot water, with treacherous tidal currents that eroded gullies with a depth of up to forty meters. That, combined with frequently occurring thick fog in this area, and the always busy shipping traffic would make this short crossing more challenging than it seems to be today. |
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Keeten, Mastgat, Zijpe, Krammer, Volkerak, a familiar series of names of Zeeland waterways. Once, in a distant past when those things were still considered to be core knowledge, you had to learn them by heart at school and you were expected to be able to point them out on an outline map. But the times have changed. The ferry is taken out of service forever and the harbor is now used for mussel farming. |
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I decide to make a walk over the northwestern part of the island, along
Zijpe and Krammer, and walk past the restaurant 'Het Veerhuis' (The Ferry
House) in the direction of a group of houses near the dike. I find that
this is not the village of Anna Jacobapolder but a hamlet named De Sluis.
The village of which the name is inextricably bound up with the former
ferry service lies a few kilometers further inland and I think that, now I
am here anyway, I could go there by walking along the dike.
The dike that surrounds Sint Philipsland is a sturdy one; it takes a
flight of 35 steps to get on the top. It is a consequence of the political
decision of 1976 to secure the Oosterschelde inlet with a permeable storm
surge barrier instead of a solid dam. So, the water that washes the island
is in direct connection with the open sea. As the doors in the
Oosterschelde barrier are only closed if extreme conditions are expected,
the dike must be strong enough to stem the sea under more normal
circumstances. For that reason the dike has been enforced and brought to
'delta height' at the end of the 1970's, that's the level that was
considered as safe in the Delta Project. A level that has become under
discussion in recent years, as this standard was laid down almost half a
century ago, when there was hardly any understanding of the consequences
of global warming and the resulting rise of the sea level that must be
expected in the near future.
But I'm not going to let such gloomy reflections spoil my good spirits.
I'd rather like to enjoy my walk along the dike, the view of the water
with the many yachts, the sun at my back and the magnificent skies over
the vast landscape. And the quiet in this far-off corner, the lack of
traffic noise and the roar of passing airplanes, it reminds me of the
island of Tiengemeten here.
When I'm nearing the northwestern point of the island the stillness is
disturbed by an annoying hum that increases in volume. Soon it becomes
clear where it comes from: big fans are running on the roofs of three huge
sheds in which I suspect an factory pig farm, according to the smell that
is lingering here. I know that the pigs inside would have no chance to
survive without those fans, but I still regret it. It takes some time
before I have left the noise and the smell behind.
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A few kilometers further on, at the duck decoy of Anna Jacobapolder, I leave the dike and turn right, into the island's 'inland parts'. Since my last visit to Ameland I have become interested in duck decoys, those typical, concealed places with their very special, even serene atmosphere. This decoy, however, cannot be visited without prior appointment, as I learn from an information panel at the entrance. |
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After a one and a half kilometer's walk along the Noordweg (Northern Road)
I finally arrive at Anna Jacobapolder, the second village of Sint
Philipsland. It's center is formed by the crossing of the Langeweg (Long
Road) with the Noordweg. It's a rather young place, just over one and a
half century old like the polder of the same name, which was diked in
1847. It's realization almost doubled the size of Sint Philipsland at that
time
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Wanted: |
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Village and polder take their name from Anna Jacoba van Sonsbeek. She was married to Willem Frederik del Campo, a military engineer and godchild of the Dutch king William I. He took the initiative to dike the northern salt marshes of Sint Philipsland, together with the well-known hydraulic engineer Abraham Caland, whose wife Anna Elizabeth Schorer owned this land, and with building contractor and backer Adrianus van Haaften. |
Almost without being aware of it I have left the village already and I
walk the two kilometers back to the ferry landing, in the meantime
digesting the impressions of Sint Philipsland that I have gathered today.
I must conclude that there is not much of the 'island feeling', that
typical feeling of being isolated from the outside world, has remained
here. That's not surprising for an island that isn't an island anymore
since 120 years. Sint Philipsland gradually has become an ordinary part of
the mainland during those years.
What did struck me is the quiet. You don't see many people here and those
who you see all seem to be calmly doing their daily things. During my walk
back to the ferry landing it happens only once that I have to step aside
for a passing car, a van with a trailer and two men in it, who stop a bit
further on and start cleaning the place-name signs with brushes and water.
An activity that I never spotted anywhere else. There are no tourist
attractions here, no beaches, hardly any historic monuments or museums. In
fact there's nothing that justifies a visit and that's exactly the reason
why it is so nice and quiet here.
Apart from that, there is that nostalgic flavor, the memories of those
days when Anna Jacobapolder and Zijpe were still household words. It shows
how the realization of the Delta Project has changed life in this region.
Sint Philipsland has returned to what it ever was: a remote corner and a
haven of tranquility in this hectic world. I hope it will remain like that
for long. I enjoyed it, but I don't think that I will come back here soon.
And that's exactly how it should be!
More about Sint Philipsland and related information
www.tholen.nl
Official website of the Municipality of Tholen, to which Sint Philipsland
belongs since 1995. Dutch language only.
www.sint-philipsland.nl
Website of the Heemkundekring (Local History Club) "Philippuslandt",
with much historic information en photographs of the island. Dutch
language, with limited content in English.
www.vvvzuidbevelandentholen.nl
Website van de Regio VVV (Regional Tourist Office) Zuid-Beveland and Tholen,
with maps and tourist information on Sint Philipsland. Dutch, English,
German and French language versions available.
www.deltawerken.com
Website about the Delta Project by the Delta Works Foundation Online. Dutch and English versions.
www.zeeuwsarchief.nl/strijdtegenhetwater
Website of the Rijksarchief (Dutch National Archives) about the
flood disaster of 1953 and the Delta Works. Dutch language only.
www.delta2003.nl
Official website of the Project Delta 2003, the commemoration of
the flood disaster of 1953. Dutch and English language.
August
2004