Draft of the main bastion for a planned fortress on Crab Island
Knapp, Jan Daniël
Title Leupe: Grondplaan van het geprojecteerde Croonwerk op 't Crabben Eyland.
Around 1740, the engineer Jan Daniel Knapp completed a design for a sizeable fortification for Crab Island as an alternative to the plans made by Desmaretz (see VEL1607-1609). The plans resemble each so strongly that P.A. Leupe erroneously attributed this map to Desmaretz in 1867.
No accompanying site map exists but in view of the intended function of a defense work to avert attacks from the sea and the selected form, what was known as a crownwork, together with the legend explanation at (b) to the effect that a raised area should be created there ‘against the wash of the water’, the projected position must have been on the northern point of the island.
Nothing is known about the response to this project proposition but again the high costs would certainly have been objected to. At any rate, the plan never materialized.
Scale-bar of 50 Rhineland rods = [approximately 1 : 1,010].
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