Treasures of Dutch Brabant: Heeswijk Castle and the Fortress Town Heusden!

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Let's visit this week-end two of the most important historical monuments in Dutch Brabant: Kasteel Heeswijk is a perfectly maintained aristocratic residence that recreates the lifestyle of the local elite at the middle of the 19th century. Heusden is one of the best preserved fortress towns in the country, a textbook example of historical restoration that keeps intact its Golden Age beauty.

We will meet at 9:30 AM in the main hall of the Amsterdam Central Station, near the yellow information desk (on the right side of the main entrance). We will travel by train to Den Bosch and then take a bus to Kasteel Heeswijk. In the afternoon, we will move on to Heusden, and once we finish our sightseeing we will stop somewhere for dinner. We should be back in Amsterdam around 8 PM, but if you need to return sooner there are frequent public transport connections from each location. I hope we will spend a great day together and discover the beauty of the Dutch Brabant region : )

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Originally built in the 11th century, Heeswijk Castle has played an important role in the history of the Netherlands. Around 1080, the inhabitants from the surrounding region decided to build a fortified place where they could take shelter in case of attacks. The initial castle, built on a small mound, was a wooden structure with a large enclosed area and a central tower. The castle switched hands several times in the following centuries, between the small medieval states in the region. Around 1370 its fortifications were strengthened in the context of the wars between the Duchy of Brabant and Guelders.

In the 16th century, the region became part of the Habsburg empire, which ruled over a large part of Europe at that time. The castle itself passed in 1554 to the Frisian family Cirksena, and remained in their possession until 1621. At the beginning of the Dutch Protestant rebellion, the Cirksena family remained loyal to the Catholic Habsburg emperors. The castle managed to withstand two sieges by Prince Maurice and his Protestant armies in 1601 and 1603. It was eventually conquered by the Dutch in 1629, enabling them to lay siege to 's-Hertogenbosch, which also fell and became part of the Dutch Republic at that time.

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In the second half of the 17th century, the castle lost its defensive character and underwent major reconstruction, becoming a comfortable countryside residence. In 1672 it had an unwelcome guest: the French king Louis XIV, who chose it as his temporary residence during his campaign against the Dutch Republic. 1672 is known as the Disaster Year in Dutch history. That year, the country was almost completely overrun by an attack on four sides, from an alliance of France, England and two German states (Munster and Cologne). Fortunately the Dutch were able to resist and the attackers were eventually forced to withdraw. At the end of the 18th century, when the Netherlands was again attacked by France, the French general Pichegru also used the castle as his headquarters.

In 1835 André Baron van den Bogaerde van Terbrugge bought the Heeswijk estate. He was a very wealthy man who had occupied the position of governor of Brabant in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The castle had fallen by then into disrepair, so the new owner started immediately reconstruction works on a large scale. Two new buildings were added: an armory and the so-called "Iron Tower", built in order to house the owner's collection of art objects and curiosities.

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The baron's sons would continue to expand both the castle and the art collections. The late 19th century extensions of the Heeswijk Castle were designed by the famous Dutch architect Kuipers, who also built the Rijksmuseum and Central Station in Amsterdam. The collection of art and historical objects gained international renown, being compared often with the one from Musée de Cluny in Paris.

The brothers died childless in 1895. Hoping to preserve their collection intact, they left a very peculiar testament: the estate was to remain in exactly the same conditions until their youngest heir would have reached the age of eighty (that is, until December 1963!). The castle was also not supposed be inhabited until that date. Unfortunately the new owners managed to cancel these requirements in court, and a great part of the art collection was sold between 1897 and 1903.

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In 1974 the last owner, Albertine van den Bogaerde, donated the estate to the Foundation Kasteel Heeswijk. The castle was restored in 2005 and now functions as a museum, reflecting the life of Dutch aristocracy in the middle of the 19th century.

Heusden was located in the Middle Ages on the border between the Duchy of Brabant, the county of Holland and the Duchy of Guelders, three of the small states that existed at that time on the territory of the Netherlands. The area belonged for a while to the County of Cleves, another state centered in Western Germany. A castle was built to defend this important strategic position, and a small settlement soon developed around it. In 1279, Heusden was occupied by Duke John I of Brabant. In 1357, the area was sold to the County of Holland. The town received city rights somewhere in the 13th century, indicating that it was already an important settlement. Fortifications were soon constructed for the whole town, bringing the original castle within the new walls. The castle's tower was then used as an ammunition storehouse.

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In 1569, at the beginning of the Eighty Years War, Heusden was occupied by the Spanish and suffered a lot of damage. Three years later, almost the whole city burned down during a great fire. In 1577, the locals switched sides and joined the Protestant rebellion. William the Silent understood the town's strategic position near the river Meuse, and ordered a new set of fortifications to be constructed. Work started in 1579, under the supervision of Jacob Kemp, and was completed in 1597.

On 24 July 1680 a terrible thunderstorm hit Heusden, and lightning struck the castle's keep. Sixty thousand pounds of gunpowder and other ammunition exploded, destroying the whole medieval castle. It took several weeks to clear the rubble and debris, and the building was never restored.

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The town's fortifications were expanded at the beginning of the 18th century, as part of the waterline systems defending Southern Netherlands. By the early nineteenth century however these defense works were obsolete, due to advances in military technology. In 1821 the town lost its fortress status and in 1879 its garrison was withdrawn. The old walls fell into disrepair and were partly dismantled.

The departure of the garrison was a severe blow for Heusden, since the approximately 100 men stationed in town had had a positive influence on the local economy. The rapid growth of 's-Hertogenbosch, situated nearby, coupled with improvements in the transport network, made Heusden lose its function as a regional center. The villages around were no longer dependent on the town for their supplies, and it soon became very poor. Due to lack of funds, there were almost no new buildings in the following decades, while repair and maintenance for the old buildings was neglected.

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In October 1944, towards the end of World War II, the cities of Tilburg and 's-Hertogenbosch were liberated by the Allied forces. The bridge across the river Meuse made Heusden, which was still occupied by the Germans, strategically significant. On Saturday 4 November, under heavy artillery fire, 170 civilians sought shelter in the town hall cellars. In the early morning of 5 November, three German army engineers detonated explosive charges they had placed earlier in the 40-meter tower. It collapsed over the building killing 134 of the people sheltered in the cellars. One tenth of the town's population died that night, and seventy-four of the victims were children. Only hours later, the town was liberated.

The destruction of the Second World War, coupled with the economic boom of the following decades, encouraged the local authorities to undertake a full-scale restoration program. In 1968 it was decided that the old fortifications were to be carefully rebuilt, as an example of the Old-Dutch fortification system popular in the 17th century. The project was eventually based on the fortification plan drawn in 1774 by D.G.B. Dalhoff , showing the fortress as it appeared after the improvements implemented around 1700. Due to the serious maintenance backlog of the previous decades, about 400 local buildings also needed to be restored. The local authorities expressed the wish that after restoration the town should not be seen as an open-air museum, but rather as a residential area with historical character. However, they were very much aware that the restored monuments and the new water-sports facilities would attract tourism as well

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The scale of the project was impressive, especially for such a small town, and it generated a lot of enthusiasm in the first years. Buildings were restored using ancient materials, purchased from demolished structures found in other places in The Netherlands. On certain Saturdays, the mayor together with other local volunteers would clean old bricks so that they were ready for re-use. The project's first focus was in the beginning on 17th-century listed buildings of visual importance and on buildings at street corners. This way, owners of premises next to restored buildings could more easily be persuaded to have their houses restored as well. If owners were not willing to restore their properties, the local authorities tried to buy up the buildings buildings and then re-sell them to new owners with the obligation to restore.

Works were mostly completed one decade later, and in 1978 the town received an award from the Europa Nostra Foundation as the most successful restoration project in Europe for that year. Due to its perfectly preserved historical center, Heusden currently attracts over 350,000 tourists per year.