The building history of the Amsterdam city gate St Anthonispoort. A further research of the weigh house Waag on Nieuwmarkt

Abstract

Waag on Nieuwmarkt was built as a city gate and later transformed into a weigh house. The numerous descriptions of the history of the building are nearly exclusively based on written sources. Building-historical research was lacking. On the basis of a memorial stone with the year 1488 it was assumed that the gate had been built in connection with the construction of the Amsterdam city wall during the eighties and nineties of the fi fteenth century. However, a further search in the records, building-historical research, and typological research provided new views on the actual construction date of St Anthonispoort, the various phases in which it proves to have been built, and on late medieval defensive works in Amsterdam. Due to the city extension of 1425, in which Geldersekade, Kloveniersburgwal and Singel were excavated, the fourteenth-century gates were no longer situated on the edge of the city and new gates were required. On the basis of sources in the records, St Anthonispoort proves to have existed in 1466, but possibly already in 1462 or 1456. The fifteenth-century city gates Haarlemmerpoort and Regulierspoort and a few brick walls also appear in records dating from before the building of the city wall. After the city fi re of 1452 a few towers were built at the urgent request of Philip the Good, but it is not clear if the fi rst appearance of St Anthonis blockhouse in 1462 is related to this work. Documents show that in 1451 the defensive importance of fourteenth-century St Olofspoort had decreased - probably because of the existence of St Anthonispoort - but that the outermost defensive works were not completely trusted yet. St Anthonispoort consists of a main gate and a front gate. There are differences between the lower part and the upper part of the main gate. An abrupt rejuvenation took place and the brickwork below differs from the brickwork above as regards the existence of string courses, bond, colour and probably also brick formats. The presence of remains of battlements in the transitions of the brickwork in the towers St Eloystoren and Schutterstoren proves that in an earlier phase the main gate was a smaller gate with battlemented towers. The medieval forerunner of the present Metselaarstoren is still partly present and shows a resemblance with the rest of the main gate and was probably also part of the earlier small main gate. There are also differences in the brickwork of the main gate and the front gate as regards colour, brick formats (22 x 10-10.5 x 5.5-6 cm and a ten-layer measure of 69.5-70 cm in the main gate versus 19.5-20 x 9.3-10 x 4.3-4.7 cm and a ten-layer measure of 56-59 cm in the front gate) and the distance between the string courses (twenty to twenty-seven layers of bricks in the main gate, versus ten to eleven in the front gate). It occurred more often that front gates were added to existing gates, as for instance around 1482 in Spaarnwouderpoort in Haarlem, of which the front gate strongly resembles that of St Anthonispoort. It is likely that the extension of St Anthonispoort in 1488 concerned the addition of the front gate, but is not clear whether the raising of the main gate and the construction of the front gate took place simultaneously. The conclusion that St Anthonispoort is older than the city wall throws new light on the Amsterdam defensive works in the fi fteenth century, which before the construction of this wall appear to have been more extensive than is often thought.