25: The Engine House
Fredet bygning: Turup Sprøjtehus
Den Fynske Landsbys sprøjtehus, kopi af sprøjtehuset i Turup.
Brandsprøjten i Den Fynske Landsbys sprøjtehus. Sprøjten er produceret i Odense og har været brugt i landsbyen Gestelev.
Intro
The Engine House (no. 25) stands beside the Village's pond, because it was from here that water was drawn for fire-fighting when “the red cockerel crowed” - that is, when there was a fire.
Building tradition
The Village's Engine House is a brick-built building with a tile roof. The building is constructed of Flensburg bricks which are narrower and shorter than modern bricks. The choice of Flensburg bricks is also seen in many of the surviving engine houses on Funen. The niches in the side walls of the Engine House were probably a devise to save bricks – a total of about 400 fewer were required by this approach.
Building history
It is not often in The Funen Village that the decision has been made to construct a copy of a building instead of re-erecting the original. But in this case there was no other choice. It was arranged as early as 1957 that The Funen Village could purchase Turup's engine house when the time was right and the funds were available. When the time came, the inhabitants of Turup did not want to sell. Attempts were made to acquire several other village engine houses, but in all cases the village residents were keen to retain their cultural heritage for themselves. As such a good cause was naturally not something the museum would even consider opposing, the matter ended with The Funen Village building a replica. There are still 33 surviving engine houses from the 19th century in the Funen area.
In 1861, the Fire Services Act was passed which made fire-fighting a municipal responsibility. The law decreed, among other things, that the rural districts should acquire at least one fire engine. In subsequent years, engine houses were built in many Funen parishes to house the newly obtained fire engines. This was also the case in Turup, which acquired its first engine house in 1866.
The Engine House in The Funen Village is a copy of the now listed engine house in the village of Turup in West Funen. In the little building stands a fire engine from the village of Gestelev in Central Funen. The fire engine was produced by a fire-engine factory in Odense.