I've done a lot of Lighthouses of the Week by now, and finding new ones is a challenge (though I know there are many years worth of lighthouses still available). This time I was casting about for a way to find one, and I decided, simply, to search for "fat lighthouse". And what popped up quite noticeably in the search results was a lighthouse named "Dicke Berta", which translates to "Fat Bertha".
You get what you ask for, sometimes. And this is what I needed.
I'm going to borrow heavily from the Lighthouse Directory for this one. But first, here's where it is.
And below is what I extracted from the Lighthouse Directory about it.
"1897 (station established 1871). Inactive since 1983. 13 m (43 ft) round cylindrical steel tower with lantern and gallery. Lighthouse painted white, lantern and gallery black. ... The Altenbruch station has always been crucial for navigators entering the Elbe [River]; from the 16th century sailors steered by the twin towers of the Altenbruch church. Hamburg built a wooden lighthouse on the dike in 1871 and in 1897 replaced it with this tower, which was immediately nicknamed Dicke Berta (Fat Bertha). Huelse also has a postcard view of the 1871 beacon. The lighthouse carried the front light of a range; the rear light was the 34 m (112 ft) cast iron Osterende-Groden Oberfeuer, nicknamed Schlanke Anna (Skinny Anna). Between 1915 and 1918 Dicke Berta was taken down and rebuilt a short distance away because of a change in the range line. The range was replaced in 1968 by the Altenbruch-Wehldorf range, but Dicke Berta remained active until 1983. The lighthouse was then transferred to a preservation society, which has restored the building. The building has since become a popular site for weddings. Located near the Altenbruch harbor."
As you will see on the map, it's near Cuxhaven and north of Bremerhaven. And I recently featured a Denmark lighthouse on the islands to the north, off the Danish coast.
So, now that you've read about Dicke Berta, let's all see Dicke Berta.
No comments:
Post a Comment