Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal

The odd name of this WHS has always intrigued me so I was very happy to finally visit Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal in April 2024. The parking lot of the steam pumping station was quite empty when I arrived on a Thursday afternoon. I arrived by car but I could imagine it's easy to arrive here by public transportation too, as the pumping station is right at the edge of the lovely town of Lemmer. The parking lot is few hundred metres away from the station but you'll see it already from the road. When you arrive you'll first enter the ticket/souvenir shop. Just like earlier on the same day at Schokland, the staff seemed bit confused to see non-Dutch visitor showing up. Besides the tickets, I picked up some brochures about Friesland region, they had quite good selection of them!

After buying the tickets you'll be asked to go to the futuristic looking visitor centre where a guide will be waiting for you. You first enter a room with huge picture of the pumping station that is made up of pictures of other World Heritage Sites! Quite fun idea! My English-speaking guide was already waiting for me and a group of Dutch visitors had their own guide already giving a tour to them. The visitor centre has a restaurant with great views over the fields and the IJssel Lake. My guide gave me a brief introduction of the pumping station's history inside the visitor centre and then we were …

This is a fantastic little site - well away from the main cities of the Netherlands so I'm sure the average tourist doesn't come here or even know about it.

The pumping station can still be used but it's just for emergencies now so you get to walk through the whole thing and see the machines from the inside and the building from the outside. There's an excellent and modern visitors centre where you start and you'll need to go with a guide (included in the ticket).

It's quite a beautiful building and learning about the technology is fascinating. Really worth the trip.

I visited this site on a cold sunny morning in April 2013. I was there at 10am and followed a guide who explained in detail how the steam pumping station works. The 3D video showing a footage of the Wouda in operation is quite interesting as is the informative film on the small screen before turning to the cafeteria. The UNESCO certificate can be seen in the office only through the glass doors. Strangely enough it is quite hidden and I only saw it by chance. It is one of the most interesting industrial heritage sites I've been to and perfect to combine with Schokland and/or the Rietveld Schroder House.

Today I drove about an hour to get to Lemmer to visit Woudagemaal (“Wouda”), the world’s largest steam-operated pumping station. It was a bleak day – the forecast was zero chance of seeing the sun and ninety five percent chance of experiencing rain. Both limbs of the forecast proved to be true.

It was wet all the way, visibility was poor and the water levels in the canals along the country roads were high. I’m glad I told the GPS to avoid the highways, because without such an acute encounter with the water levels, I might have missed the wonder of the pumping station. Every single day, pumping stations keep the Netherlands from being submerged.

The decision to build Wouda, to solve flooding woes and to reclaim land, was made in 1913. Construction began in 1916. When pumping started in 1920, it was powered by coal which came via ships from the South – and was moved to the boilers on wheelbarrows.

It has enormous capacity: in 1 minute it can drain a football (soccer) pitch flooded with 2 feet of water. For engineers, that’s 4,000 m3 per minute or about 6 million m3 per day

Our tour guide was an older man who loves showing off the pumping station and clearly knows his stuff – the kind of guide I always appreciate and hope one day to be. However his English, though far better than my Dutch, wasn’t up to par. Despite translation help from two other visitors – …

My already quite dirty car took some more dust when I tried to get to the Woudagemaal. At the moment, the surrounding dikes are raised by one meter to be able to continue withstanding the water.

For a look inside you have to take a tour. This is very worthwhile because you get some idea of how this big complex works (although I didn't grasp the whole story). Very remarkable is that every machine inside is in very good and blinking condition. The people who work here obviously take great care and pride in preserving this industrial heritage.

Besides the impressive machinery, the building that they are housed in is also worth a special look. The large engine hall is a very fine example of the Amsterdam school of architecture.

On my second visit (together with WHS colleague Christer Sundberg) we were given a private tour by Theo Kuilboer. The complex technical structures made much more sense to me thanks to his explanations.

This pumping station will be of interest to people of all ages as it helps to understand the problems the people of the Netherlands have with dealing with the problems of rain in an area situated below sea level. I found the visit very interesting and with an entry price of 5 Euros (August 06) it was good value. The entrance is sign posted off the N359 just on the edge of Lemmer. You have to visit with an on site tour guide (English speaking)this is for safety reasons and they give an amazing amount of information. Tour times are about every hour starting on the half hour excluding lunch times.

If a lot of rain has fallen in the previous days then the pumps may be in operation and will make your visit an even greater experience.

The pumping station is absolutely pristine, the machines are spotless and still ready to start up when called into action, as they are in for a few weeks in winter. The main building is finished to a very high quality and the upkeep of the machines is fantastic. This is a huge pumping station yet when it is up and running it only needs about 3 or 4 people to keep it going.

The volunteers that gave the tours were really great and helpful and obviously enjoyed giving up their free time to teach people about the site, and as with everywhere in the Netherlands their grasp of English was shaming good.

I am not sure however if this site is really of outstanding universal value, whilst I greatly appreciate industrial aspects of the list I am left wondering if being the ‘world’s largest steam driven water pumping station’ is significant enough to merit the status of World Heritage. The site contrasts with the Derwent Valley Mills in England where the significance was much greater but the upkeep of the mills was nowhere near as impressive.

I visited the site after a short drive (25min) from Shockland. It is just outside the town of Leemer in southern Friesland, and to my surprise was well signposted from the A6 motorway. Leemer provides a nice place to get something to eat, either in a restaurant or grab some food in a supermarket and sit on the really lovely sandy beach.

On the …

Some time ago I visisted the more than 80 years old pumping station in mid-winter.

The machines looked magnificent, eager to be started up again. My companions also

enjoyed the trip very much.

Since then there have been significant changes:

- the site was added to the World Heritage List in 1998

- since July 2001 there is an enthousiastic group of volunteers giving a guided tour

- in the tour included is a 11 minutes video

- when in autumn or winter the pumps are needed, there is daily service of guided tours

from 10 am - 18 pm

- since Feb 2002 there is a website operational: www.woudagemaal.nl