Historische aanleg, Zandpad bij 39

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, in Dutch. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

HISTORICAL GARDEN AND PARK LAYOUT.

Originally a late 17th-century park in formal style, which was landscaped around 1800, probably on the instructions of A. Ahuys (owner from 1776 to 1800) or H. Muilman (1800-1822). To the east of the house lies the early 18th-century vegetable garden with adjoining the heritage garden from the twenties. The formal layout of the park was based on the customary axial system, characteristic of the Baroque. From the rear of the house ran a long sight line over nearly the entire length diagonally to the end of the garden. The earliest known depiction and source of the historical park layout surrounding Queekhoven house comes from 'De Zegepralende Vecht' from 1719.

The garden and park layout of Queekhoven currently consists of three historically interconnected parts. The part surrounding the main building is dominated by Queekhoven house and the two symmetrically placed outbuildings between which lies the semicircular lawn that Lutgers drew in 1836. At the house there are now two linden trees and at the access gates two large weeping willows. Behind the house lies the park in landscape style within the original formal boundary plan. The original straight and wide ditches were dug out during the reorganization of the formal park into landscape style around 1800 to form a long winding pond. The wide ditch running entirely around the vegetable garden was retained. The winding pond forms a peninsula on which stands a probably 18th-century horse chestnut, whose branches have been set in the ground around it and have taken root. The round shallow basin lying on this peninsula is a remnant of the formal layout and lay in the main axis. At the foot of a swamp cypress stood in 1870 a tea pavilion, whose foundations can still be found. The rose border—now a much simplified version of the border that C.W. Matthes laid out around 1920 in the same place—is somewhat of a strange element in terms of size and situation in the landscaped park. Most striking in this landscape part is the northerly located avenue, formed by approximately 63 conically clipped yew trees, which are now about 5 metres high. The avenue closes off the landscape park on the north side and was probably planted at the end of the 19th century. The vegetable and fruit garden bordering the aforementioned landscape part has undergone hardly any changes over the past 300 years and gives a fine picture of the dimensions and use of such a garden. The original wide ditch runs around the vegetable garden and splits it into two parts: an island with orchard and a vegetable garden part. On the north and east sides the vegetable garden is closed off by a meandering garden wall approximately 2 metres high (also called a meander wall) against whose rear side buttresses have been built. The wall was restored several times in the 19th century and again in 1994. The commissioning of the construction of the wall could have been done by the Anabaptist Francois Straalman (1678-1754), an important cloth merchant, manufacturer and ship owner. He purchased the Queekhoven estate in 1725 for fl 14,200 and almost certainly knew Pieter de la Court van der Voort, whose family owned, among others, the estates Voortwijk in Breukelen and Berbice in Voorschoten, where a meander wall stands which was built around 1700. Against the meander wall at Queekhoven stand old peach and pear trees. Also in the vegetable garden are a late 19th-century pear tree pergola and several late 18th- and 19th-century greenhouses and cold frames.

Behind the vegetable garden lay until 1920 an oak and beech forest executed in landscape style with winding paths and a kidney-shaped pond which previously formed part of the formal garden and park layout and extended to the end of the plot, the present Scheendijk. Around 1920 C.W. Matthes largely stripped the eastern part of the forest of oaks and beeches and planted it with special native tree species and converted it into an arboretum. The kidney-shaped pond which according to tradition dates from the years of the creation of the heritage garden is probably much older and dates from the beginning of the landscape layout around 1800. In 1845 it is written about Queekhoven in the Geographical dictionary of J.A. van der Aa that "This country seat contains (...) besides the gentleman's residence and other structures, English plantations, avenues and woods, winding stream, fish-rich ponds (...)". Perhaps one of these 'fish-rich ponds' is the kidney-shaped pond. C.W. Matthes also laid out the rock garden now still present on the north side of this part.

The rear part of the forest was planted as willow coppice, remained part of the estate until 1963 and was then sold to the municipality of Breukelen which has continued to use the narrow strip of land as coppice cultivation.