Fort Sint Pieter is located at a strategic point on the Sint-Pietersberg. After the French Louis XIV conquered Maastricht in the 17th century, it became painfully clear that the Sint-Pietersberg was of great strategic importance for the defense of the city.
More than three hundred years ago, the impressive Fort Sint Pieter was built on it, in order to be able to defend Maastricht from the south. It was city commander Daniël Wolf van Dopff who had a pentagonal fortress built with twelve gun emplacements.
It was built of marl and brick, with all kinds of corridors (galleries and casemates) and spaces in the fort, for example for the storage of ammunition. Nevertheless, in 1794 the French managed to capture the fortress again.
They shot from a blind spot and managed to penetrate all the way into the marl quarries. You can still see the traces of the explosions they caused there in an attempt to completely destroy the fortress.
In the end, the destruction failed, but the underground explosions did the fort no good. At the beginning of the 19th century, encouraged by the advance of Napoleon's armies, it was renovated and modernized.
After 1867, the fort lost its military function and was eventually transferred to Natuurmonumenten. They manage the surrounding nature reserve, the Sint-Pietersberg and the fortress.
The fort provides an ideal habitat for wall plants, rare butterflies and it is a wintering place for bats. There are daily guided tours of the fortress and the marl quarries that lie below.
This text has been automatically translated using an online translation service.
