On the other side of the road is the showpiece of the intersection: the bridge keeper's house. With painted shutters, two small rectangular windows above the name 'Hesselerbrug' in the facade, two large windows below and another one on either side, it fully meets the appearance of an approximately hundred-year-old monument. Add to that the house door on the side under the roof and the notice board with the operating times and there you have it, a real bridge keeper's house. It was inhabited for decades by successive bridge keeper families, including the family of Hendrik and Geesje Jager from 1929 to 1959. They raised five children here and also kept six cows and a horse in the back house.
Son Rieks (later also a bridge keeper) is still surprised that all this was possible. Once they had a horse that constantly beat the wall with its hoof at night. To calm it down, mother would feed beets one by one, Sometimes even a wheelbarrow full! Rieks also remembers that early in the morning a row of ship hunters rocked on their 'fat Belgians' with the 'liens' carefully folded around their necks towards waiting ships further on. And that his father had to open the bridge for more than forty ships a day. "They now also pass by in the high season," says bridge operator Margje Wijnstra-Vredenborg, who lives in the house with her husband Willem. Only now they are yachts and Margje opens thirteen bridges at the beginning of the season in April, all of which she 'drives down' from 8 to 5 between Geesbrug and Nieuw-Amsterdam by car. As it gets busier, it serves fewer bridges, until it only keeps the Hesseler and Oosterhesseler bridges open.
The house does not date from 1860, because it burned down completely in 1926. It was rebuilt in this way and it is now more beautiful than it has ever been. It is very special with the shutters, personally assembled and painted by Willem. Margje and Willem have seen their children grow up there since 1978 and they still feel happy there, especially now that their grandchildren also regularly visit. Think about it for a moment, at this bridge keeper's monument.