Castles of the Netherlands (part one)

Day 1,685, 07:46 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by M. de Ruyter



Dear readers / viewers, today I’d like to treat you to some fine Dutch castles.

We start with slot Loevestein, probadly the most famous castle in the Netherlands.
Built since 1357 on the point where two of our mayor rivers come together, the Maas and the Waal.

picture taken at the end of Januar 1995, when the rivers where very high.







The town castle of Helmond, build since 1325 as a replacement for an older castle.

the castle’s courtplace in 1738

Muider slot, also a wellknow one, the erection date is not certain, but we know that earl Floris V bought it around 1240. During a huntingparty with falcons in 1269 he got captured by two of his “friends” ; Gijsbrecht IV van Amstel and Herman van Woerden , after 5 days he tried to escape, only to get stabbed to death by Gerard van Velsen with 22 knifestabs. Then bishop Willem van Mechelen destroyed the castle, and used the stones to enlarge his own castle Vredelant (Vreeland). 70 Years later the Albrecht earl of Bavaria erected the same castle there.
Although some say it was never destroyed...






Castle Ammersoyen, build from 1026.



Castle de Haar first built in the 12th century has been destroyed many times. It’s place was very strategic, on a little hill next to a dead branch of the river Rhine. But after every destruction, like by a tornado in 1674 that also damaged the Dom church in Utrecht, it was rebuilt as an even bigger castle until the last inhabitant died.

The castle in 1646

Here the castle in 1760

Sadly, by the end of the 19th century there was nothing more then a romantic ruin.





In 1887, the inheritor of the castle-ruins, Etienne van Zuylen van Nijevelt, married Hélène de Rothschild, of the Rothschild family. Fully financed by Hélène's family, the Rothschilds, the couple set about rebuilding the castle from its ruins. For the restoration of the castle, the famous architect Pierre Cuypers was hired. He would be working on this project for 20 years (from 1892 to 1912). The castle has 200 rooms and 30 bathrooms,



of which only a small number on the ground floor have been opened to be viewed by the public. In the hall, Cuypers has placed a statue with his own image in a corner of the gallery on the first floor.



The castle was equipped by Cuypers with the most modern gadgets, such as electrical lighting with its own generator, and central heating by way of steam. This installation is internationally recognized as an industrial monument.



The kitchen was for that period also very modern and still has a large collection of copper pots and pans and an enormous furnace of approximately 6 metres long, which is heated with peat or coals. The tiles in the kitchen are decorated with the coats of arms of the families De Haar and Van Zuylen, which were for this purpose especially baked in Franeker. Cuypers marked out the difference between the old walls and the new bricks, by using a different kind of brick for the new walls. For the interior Cuypers made a lot of use of cast iron.



In the castle one can see many details which reminds one of the family De Rothschild, such as the David stars on the balconies of the knight's hall, the motto of the family on the hearth in the knight's hall (A majoribus et virtute) and the coat of arms of the family right underneath on the hearth in the library.












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