A Late September Surprise

The last day of September and a glorious day after a month of rain and miserable weather. Besides, a blank page in my diary, which is quite unusual. So I put on my walking shoes and headed for ‘s Graveland, a place I have heard of but never been to. In fact it is a long and thin ribbon village, forming the boundary between the sandy ridge east and the lakes west. The lakes are the result of peat digging, and the western part of Holland has many such lakes. We are a strange country, we dig holes in our soil which fill with water and so we create new lakes. On the other hand, we reclaim land from the sea and from other lakes. The lakes which are the result of peat digging, are shallow. But we also dig deep holes to get sand for building roads and new housing projects. They are later made into recreational lakes but usually not big enough for sailing. Our country, or at least the western half, changes over the years and decades, taking a different shape each time. A slow time lapse film would be interesting: lakes disappearing and appearing.

 Some of the mansions or big houses

Ponds, fields and tower rooms

Anyway, on the long sandy stretch of land I was talking about, rich merchants from Amsterdam built summer houses for themselves in the eighteenth century, which they liked so much that they started to live there permanently. The mansions they built are large for Dutch standards, sometimes moated, and were surrounded by landscaped gardens, ornamental and rose gardens. They cultivated the land, planted woods, interspersed with fields for cattle and sheep, dug ponds and streams.

Happy cows

Some of those mansions today are still privately owned and lived in. Others now belong to a charity one could compare with the National Trust in England. Most of the gardens and the fields and woods are now free for everyone to walk in. There are some 10 mansions with their surrounding lands and parks owned by this charity in this small stretch of the country alone.

 Nature takes over. 

Below, trees grow through the former steps of Bantam, one of the big houses now broken down.

Walking those estates and parklands had been on the bucket list for a long time. Yesterday was the perfect day for it: bright sunshine, a cloudless sky, not too hot though and a weekday, so apart from retired people it wasn’t busy at all. Walks are marked, which makes it easy. Alas, no autumn colours yet, but the low light was beautiful. I did not start till just after midday, as it is a one and a half hour drive to get there. With many breaks to take pictures, plus a stop for a drink, I could not complete the longest circular walk but had to cut it short and managed some 14 kilometres.

Above:A gate house of one of the estates.

Below: just some labourer's cottage

 A real Dutch Barn next to a farm (below) on one of the estates

Shadowy beech lined lanes 

 Clear water and muddy water

Although a busy part of Holland, it was Holland at its best: sundrenched meadows with contented cows, sheep among the heather, many driveways to the mansions lined with mature and tall beech trees which will look amazing in a month’s time, ponds reflecting the imposing houses. The stark contrast of shadow and light made it difficult to take photos.

 Autumn has arrived!

When I drove back one of the mansions which is almost a castle looked absolutely stunning bathed in the coppery light of the low standing evening sun. I could not resist the temptation and stopped to take some photos. That same beautiful sun, a huge bright orange ball at the end of the straight road west, almost blinded me completely when I drove home.

 Trompenburgh