Historical Gardens

This very weekend Staatsbosbeheer, its owner, will start an emergency felling of trees on the grounds of Elswout and neighbouring Duinvliet. This is the result of an extensive review of the health of many trees on both estates. The survey was initiated by the unexpected collapse of an old tree in August 2011.

The current felling follows extensive restoration works carried out in Elswout over the past year, which mainly concerned its pavilions and bridges.

The work has started today, as the situation appears to be too critical to wait till after the holidays. First up will be trees along a public cycling path, on the grounds of Duinvliet. Staatsbosbeheer expects the investigation of potentially dangerous trees and -when necessary- felling of more trees will last through the first half of 2012.

Counting rings?
I just hope someone makes the effort to count growth rings on the older trees, as parts of nowadays Duinvliet are remnants of one of the oldest landscape gardens in The Netherlands: Sandenhoeff in Overveen. In my article on the subject I make a case for that claim, by pointing out that although we know very little of the actual layout of the garden at the time, the fact that plants from the New World are purchased for it as early as 1756, can only mean an attempt was made to create an English garden in the dunes west of Haarlem.¹

In letters to his friend Jacob Boreel, Sandenhoeff’s owner Cornelis Backer exclaimed that he very much enjoyed the layout of those gardens, although he had admittedly never seen one for real. While Boreel was in Engeland during two tours on behalf of the Dutch government (1759/1760 and 1761-1762), he was constantly pressed by Backer to send home drawings and prints of gardens in England, as well as plants he had heard about. In the mean time Backer sent fruit from Boreel’s garden (Beeckestijn) and grapevines to England, in order that Boreel could entertain his guests during meals and have some gifts ready for people who he might want give one.

Let’s just hope that the current cutting of trees can confirm the early landscape layout I have discerned from Backers letters and cash register…

1. H. van der Eijk, “Sandenhoeff: een vroeg landschappelijke tuin?”, Cascade 18 (2009), nr. 2, p104-110. He called them ‘Americaansche boomen’ and paid for the complete package of getting trees from the other side of the ocean: retrieval, freight, transport and -not the least- provision.
   At the time, Dutch gardens were still laid out in a traditional manner, full blown landscape gardens did not appear till the 1780s. One of the first was Elswout itself, by the way, initiated by a member of the Boreel family. [back]

Broekhuizen near Leersum is currently owned by Delta Lloyd and Staatsbosbeheer and has now been put up for sale for the second time in a few years. That news caused me to take a look at the restoration of the house  and reconstruction of the garden that have been going on since 2006.¹ My last visit was in September 2008, before the small islands in the pond behind the house were (partly) cleared from their outgrown trees and replanted.
Seeing the results there has not made me entirely happy.

The trees on the smallest island have all been chopped away, but no replanting has taken place here. The result is an eery blob, sticking out of the pond like an outgrown pimple. Continue Reading »

1. Adding this footnote because I stumbled upon the website of the last private owner of Broekhuizen. He has a lot of pre-restoration photos and photos of the interior that are usually not easy to find. According to the sales brochure, the interior has remained relatively intact, so this way we can see what the interested parties will see tomorrow, Thursday May 27th. [back]

We have seen the announcement of two restoration projects in the last month, both in the province of Noord-Holland: Nijenburg (Heiloo) and Duinlust (Overveen).

Duinlust will see a restoration in the spirit of the design by the late nineteenth century architect Petzold, who redesigned the garden around a newly built house in the 1880′s. Current owner of the grounds is Staatsbosbeheer, the house is in use by a company and houses a fitness club and restaurant. The restoration plan is made by the Dutch Foundation for the preservation of privately owned estates (Stichting tot behoud van Particuliere Historische Buitenplaatsen -PHB), and will be realised by Royal Haskoning. More about these plans in later posts.

Nijenburg is owned by nature preservation society Natuurmonumenten. Together with Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser they will spend around € 350,000.00 on the restoration of the house and adjacent buildings, some early nineteenth century landscape features, as well as the restoration of older avenues. Also in the plans is a cleanup around a typical 17th century Dutch garden feature, the Kattenberg. This is a man made hill, often used as an elevated spot from which the surrounding countryside could be enjoyed. In most cases, the soil with which these elevations were made, came from one or more ponds that had to be dug out elsewhere in the garden.

The ‘Kattenberg’ at Nijenburg in September 2008. Photo by HvdE.

The theatre which is situated on the left side of this map (“De Comedie”), goes back to an original early nineteenth century design.

A main attraction at Nijenburg is the strait avenue forming the central axis from the front of the house towards the west: on the longest day, the 21st of June, this avenue provides a clear view at the setting sun.