Muiden: from moated castle Muiderslot to fort island Pampus

In 1282 Count Floris V bought the lordship of Waterland and Zeevang. He had several castles built to protect the area, among them the Muiderslot. Around 1285 he had an existing house on this spot fortified and extended. It became 't Huys te Muyden, a moated castle with walls up to one and a half metres thick in places. The exact date of construction is not known.

In 1296 Floris V was murdered. The castle was taken and demolished, and its stones went to a castle in Utrecht. Around 1370 Albrecht of Bavaria rebuilt the ruin on the old foundations, with corner towers and two residential wings. That is the basis of the Muiderslot as it stands today.

In 1436 the castle passed to the House of Burgundy. Philip the Good had it fitted out in the latest taste, with stained-glass windows and sandstone figures by the fireplace. After the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 it came into the hands of the city of Amsterdam, which strengthened the earthen ramparts and made it an official residence. Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft lived there for almost forty years. In 1795 the French took the castle, and under Louis Napoleon it became a barracks with an ammunition depot. Under King William I it was put up for sale because of its poor condition. An action group saved it, and later it became a national museum.

The story of the Muiderkring is partly true and partly myth. Hooft received friends in the Knights' Hall for music, theatre and poetry, but they never all came at the same time. The name and the paintings that still hang in the Knights' Hall date from the nineteenth century. The friends are said to have included Constantijn Huygens, Hugo de Groot, Joost van den Vondel and Maria Tesselschade. A new Muiderkring was founded in 1954 and still exists.

The castle has gardens. The Kruidhof is the herb garden of the Muiderslot, with culinary herbs, medicinal herbs and dye and ornamental plants. The medicinal herbs provided a pharmacy at home, and the dye plants coloured yarn, wool and cloth. There is also a plum orchard. The collection includes a celestial globe, which belongs to the story of navigating by the stars. The audio tour in Dutch and English is included in the ticket.

Off the coast of Muiden lies Pampus, an artificial island with a fort. At the insistence of the Tweede Kamer, it was decided in 1881 to build the fort in the Zuiderzee. Construction ran from 1887 to 1895. The main building rests on wooden piles of about eleven metres and is made of masonry and concrete. Two armoured gun turrets each held two 24-centimetre guns, with a range of about eight kilometres. The Germans blew up the turrets in the Second World War. The fort lost its function in 1932, when the Afsluitdijk closed off the Zuiderzee. The name comes from a sandbank where ships bound for Amsterdam often ran aground. The Dutch expression Voor Pampus liggen comes from there.

Today Pampus is a museum with an interactive exhibition, a virtual flight over the defence line, vegetable gardens and a terrace. It is the most visited fort of the Stelling van Amsterdam. In the sailing season boats leave from the harbour of Muiden and from IJburg; day visits are possible again from late March 2027. Muiden is also the starting point of the Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie, which runs 85 kilometres to the Biesbosch. Since 2021 that line and the Stelling van Amsterdam together form the World Heritage Site Dutch Water Defence Lines.

Practical

Address: Muiderslot, Herengracht 1, 1398 AA Muiden

Open (1 November to 31 March): Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-17:00, ticket desk closes at 16:30

Admission: adults EUR 19.50, children 4 to 11 EUR 7.50, children 0 to 3 free, Museumkaart free

Audio tour: included, in Dutch and English

Pampus: day visits again from late March 2027, boats from Muiden and IJburg