Former estate 'De Schaffelaar'

11 year old Cameron participates in a chess tournament in Barneveld today and I had a look beforehand for possibilities to walk the dog nearby. At the edge of Barneveld, in the province of Gelderland, lies former estate 'De Schaffelaar' (210 acres). The original castle was destroyed by the Spaniards in 1585 and a new house was erected. In 1767 the garden was created by a student of Andre le Notre, who designed the palace gardens of Versaille, and the house was rebuild and 33 year later destroyed by fire. In 1852 a new house was build in neo-Tudor style. Currently the house is now owned by the council of Barneveld and the gardens are in care of the 'Geldersch Landschap' society.  

Today was cold but calm and dry at last after several days of storms and rain. It's only 5 weeks ago that waterlevels in The Netherlands were so low that ships couldn't navigate properly on smaller rivers and even Rhine and Maas were difficult to navigate. However, waterlevels are so high at the moment that they had to open dykes in the northeast of The Netherlands to store excess water in polders. Excess water is normally pumped to sea but the lowwater level is too high to do so because of the northwesterly storm. People had to be evacuated.

The tower of the Great Church of Naarden

Climbing the stairs inside the wall

  Yesterday we weren't really outdoors as we were ascending the local churchtower. Ascending that is using the stairs not climbing the outside.

Having been born in the neighbouring town the city of Naarden has always been the opponent. As a child I hadn't been to Naarden often and it has been one of my wishes to climb the churchtower of The Great Church of Naarden.

Yesterday I took 2 of my kids up the tower. Kids like to do these things.

 

The church was build during the fourteenth and fiftheenth century in the stronghold of Naarden. Naarden was rebuild after been flooded earlier as it's in spitting distance from the former Zuyderzee. Being part of the defenses around Amsterdam and Holland it got double starshaped canals around the city. People that wanted to live inside the city had to pay 2000 bricks for the construction of the church. With the small number of inhabitants 500 years ago it's a miracle the church has been completed - the walls are more than 8 feet wide. The staircase is inside the wall, turning clockwise so it could easely be defended with swords.

Floor of middle section : the churchbells
were hauled up through this hole

The ceiling of the lower part of the tower

The churchtower contained 5 bronze bells until WWII. The smallest of the bells was thrown in the canals to hide it for the German occupier. The 4 bigger bells were stolen by the Germans and transported to Germany where they were melted for warmaterial. Luckily plastermoulds were made so they could be reconstructed after the war.

5 bells in an oakframe

The views from the tower are wide and far.

It's windy on top

View north from the tower

View southeast with cityhall behind the church 

The Great Church of Naarden stitched together

Much too soon we had to get back down again after which we made a tour around the church. Ancient canonballs can still be seen sticking in the walls. Naarden has been occupied and looted by Spaniards, French and Germans and 'rentals' from all over Europe. As far as I know the British have never been here. Instead William of Orange went the other way.

Let's start with the end : "Coffin Road"

A couple of weeks ago I bought a cheap digital camcorder. The plan was to use it for videoing the Dutch landscape and publish them on Youtube and this blog. A first try-out with time laps recording was quite disappointing. I decided to do it the 'old-fashioned way' and take photographs which would be transferred into a movie. Windows Movie Maker can put 12 pictures into 1 second so it isn't a smooth movie. I think that adds to the charm (and takes less time to watch).

My first movie is "Coffin Road", a short movie about a path used in the past to carry the deceased to their last resting place, St.John's cemetery near Laren (The Netherlands). The cemetery is believed to be an ancient place of worship going back to pre-Christian times. In 893 A.D. a pilgrim carrying a silver box containing the bones of St.John was murdered at the spot and found dead the next morning. The bones were found and buried thus starting the St.John's cemetery. Being the only Cathlic cemetery in the district deceased Catholics were buried there. To ban out heiden habits it was forbidden to carry the dead in a zigzagging way. Straight lines were formed from villages to the cemetery (zigzagging was used in heiden times to prevent the deceased finding his or hers way back home).


'Doodweg' near Laren by Anton Mauve 

Several paths still exist - all leading to St.John's cemetery - and are called 'doodweg' in Dutch (death road). I believe the english equivalent is Coffin Road.

I hope you'll enjoy my movie and the Dutch landscape.