Nederland: diversen

A klokkenstoel (bell tower/belfry) as a separate structure probably owes its origin to the fact that certain areas in Friesland were too poor or the communities too small, to build a church. Sometimes a church was built without a tower and the bell was placed in a separate bell tower. It also happened that when a church building or church tower had fallen into ruin, a bell tower was built. Usually, the bell tower is located in a village or hamlet. Almost all freestanding bell towers can be found in the province of Friesland and therefore the bell tower can be called a typical Frisian construction. Brongerga is such a hamlet (nearby Oranjewoud and Heerenveen). In 1315 it already had a little church and a drawing from 1722 shows that there was still a church, but it must have been demolished shortly afterwards. Nowadays, only the belfry remains in the churchyard, where an old tombstone mentions the year 1711. The bell tower contains a very old bell from the 13th century, which came from a belfry in another Frisian village. The current bell tower was renovated in 2006.

Dolmen D52 - just outside the village of Diever - is a medium-sized dolmen. It has fourteen sidestones and two closing endstones. From the original seven capstones six are still present. One is missing and of the remaing six, three still supported on their sidestones, the other three having slipped between theirs. Dolmen D52 is 14.5 meters long and 4.8 meters wide. Dolmen D52 is already mentioned in the 17th century and is depicted on the French maps. At the time of a big survey by Prof. Van Giffen (1918) the dolmen was a total ruin. Under his supervision this hunebed has been thoroughly restored in 1953/54. In 1995 restoration works were still performed to this dolmen.

Hunebed 'D54' is located at the foot of the Havelterberg.

Hunebedden (megalithic tombs) are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. They were built more than 5.000 years ago in the last phase of the Stone Age by people of the Funnel Beaker Culture, who buried their dead in these hunebedden . The stones of which the dolmens are built are originating from Scandinavia. They were carried south by the advancing land ice during an ice age. When the ice melted at the end of the ice age, the stones that were carried along were left behind. Hunebed D15 is located nearby the village of Loon. It has all it takes to be a complete hunebed . Five pairs of upright stones support five capstones and together they form a chamber. The chamber is closed off by two more large stones, one at either end. Halfway along one of the long sides is the entrance. Two pairs of portal stones flank a short passage providing access to the tomb. The passage was originally covered with two capstones, one of which has survived. The portal stones are connected to a ring a stones, known as “kerb”. Those stones surrounding the hunebed once marked the periphery of a barrow that covered the tomb. There are still 18 of the 23 still remaining, which is unusual because in the past these stones were usually the first to be stolen. The barrow was dug away shortly after 1870, with intention to restore the honeyed to its original state. In those days it was assumes that the mound of earth did not form part of the tomb. The hunebedden in the province of Drenthe all have the same basic design. Nowadays most of them don’t have portal stones of a kerb. Hunebed D15 is one of the few including all the possible elements.

Hunebedden (megalithic tombs) are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. They were built more than 5.000 years ago in the last phase of the Stone Age by people of the Funnel Beaker Culture, who buried their dead in these hunebedden . The stones of which the dolmens are built are originating from Scandinavia. They were carried south by the advancing land ice during an ice age. When the ice melted at the end of the ice age, the stones that were carried along were left behind. Most of these tombs in the province of Drenthe lie in fields or woods. Hunebed D4 is an exception, as it lies next to a wall of a small 19th century farmhouse and has survived nearly intact. Its ‘twin’ D3 lies close by and was for a long time partly covered by a mound of sand that was part of the original burial monument. The remains of that mound were dug away in 1870. Although almost complete, with all of the lintels and all but two of the uprights being present, these two tombs have never been restored. Only the cracks in the lintels have been filled with cement. They make a pretty picture, not least because of the wildly shaped branches of the old oak trees above the stones. Despite standing by the side of the road, the hunebedden are not immediately visible. We had to follow the signs to a narrow path that squeezes between two small dilapidated farmhouses and only then we found the large green lichen-covered lumps of stone, standing ‘head to tail’.

Hunebedden (megalithic tombs) are the oldest monuments in the Netherlands. They were built more than 5.000 years ago in the last phase of the Stone Age by people of the Funnel Beaker Culture, who buried their dead in these hunebedden . They were built from the erratic boulders pushed here by the ice sheets during the Ice Ages. Hunebed G1 is the only one still standing in the province of Groningen (one other is exhibited in a museum). G1 is the most northerly hunebed on the Hondsrug (a complex of several ridges formed by the land ice at the end of the Saale glaciation, 370.000 to 130.000 years ago). Officially known as G1, the hunebed is colloquially known as Hunebed ’t Heiveen . The first written record dates from 1694. It was excavated in 1957. The tomb is no longer complete and nowadays has only one keystone, four uprights and two lintels remain. The most striking lintel is enormous (PiP1) - obviously far too large for the stone robbers. Although G1 is not complete any longer, by carefully marking with cement the position of the missing six uprights (PiP2), the one keystone and the two portal stones, which gives a good impression of the original size. Next to the tomb stands a large stone (PiP3) which was possibly once part of it.

The dolmen-twins D17 and D18 are among the best known dolmens in the Netherlands. These two fairly large dolmens are easily accessible and lie behind the medieval Jacobuskerk in Rolde and on the edge of a cemetery from later times. The two dolmens were constructed between 3400 and 3200 BCE and are attributed to the funnel beaker culture. Hunebed D17 lies beautifully under an old oak tree, but makes a somewhat disorderly impression. It has 8 capstones, only one of which is still in place; the others have partly or completely slipped off their supporting stones. Originally, the dolmen had 18 side stones and 8 capstones; it is almost 14 metres long and 3.8 metres wide. Hunebed D18 looks neat and complete. To achieve this, the dolmen has been restored several times, most recently in 1993. The seven capstones each lie on their supporting stones. To keep it that way, steel pins have been drilled into two of the capstones. The dolmen has a length of over 12.5 metres and a width of 3.5 metres. Dolmen D18 is one of the largest surviving dolmens of the Neetherlands. The dolmen-twins in Rolde have been captured by various painters. Hunebed D17 is one of the most frequently depicted dolmens in the Netherlands and has appeared on paintings, tiles and postcards.

The Waterloopbos - official address in Marknesse, but as a matter of fact located nearby the small village of Kraggenburg - was built in the early 1950s. It offers 35 scale models of major water works from all over the world. Of course the famous Dutch Delta Works were tested here, but also for instance the ports of Rotterdam, Lagos, IJmuiden, Istanbul and Bangkok. Testing and simulating reality by engineers of the Waterloopkundig Laboratorium was done in the 50’s and 60’s of the 20th century. The Waterloopbos is located in the Noordoostpolder, one of the many Dutch polders. As this ‘new’ land lies five metres below sea level, so water could flow naturally to the test setups without needing pumps. With the help of this flowing water plus the creation of weirs, dams and wave machines, the engineers were able to test the influences certain forces would have on their proposed constructions. No more testing has been done here for decades and in many places the models have been reclaimed by nature. The old water ducts, weirs and sluices are now full of plants and shrubs. Parts of the Waterloopbos look like a green jungle, where the forest interacts with the dated technology. One of the models - a gigantic structure of two concrete walls - has been transformed into a massive artwork: Deltawerk // .

The Waterloopbos offers 35 scale models of hydraulic projects from all over the world. Off course the famous Dutch Deltawerken were tested here. The Deltagoot (Delta flume), a gigantic structure of two concrete walls in the Waterloopbos , served as the test location. Nowadays it has been transformed into an imposing memorial to the research once conducted in these woods. In the meantime this test location has lost its original function. In 2016 it was declared a Rijksmonument (Dutch national monument). The artists RAAAF | Atelier de Lyon were then asked by Natuurmonumenten (Society for Preservation of Nature Monuments in the Netherlands) to create a massive artwork from the famous 'Delta flume'. “Deltawerk //” became its title. And massive it has become: RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon have dug out the colossal wave basin; its concrete walls now tower some seven meters over the visitors. Enormous concrete panels were sawed out of the 250m-long Deltagoot, which were turned and placed at different angles to visualise the devastating power of the water. As years go by, nature will reclaim the work of art and mosses and ferns will take over (as in the rest of the Waterloopbos ).