Historische aanleg, Langbroekerdijk bij 10

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

Component 2

HISTORIC GARDEN AND PARK LAYOUT.

The initial layout of the HISTORIC GARDEN AND PARK LAYOUT surrounding Sterkenburg Castle presumably dates back to around 1626. The layout consisted of seven compartments, placed transversely to the medieval ridge-and-furrow landscape, each 100/110 metres wide and 400 metres long. Six compartments lay to the south of the Langbroekerwetering and the seventh to the north of the Wetering. Round the compartments lay lanes and broad ditches. The compartment immediately to the south of the Langbroekerwetering contained approach lanes, the moated castle with forecastle and to the west a pond; the next southern compartment contained four rectangular gardens with a square garden in the centre. The gardens were separated to the east by an still existing beech pergola with a maze behind it. The area of four following compartments was wooded. In 1647 the murder of the castle lord takes place in the 'wood of Sterkenburg'; this record is the earliest known mention of a layout at Sterkenburg. The special feature of this layout is that all modifications have always occurred within this early 17th-century structure of seven compartments. Surveyor Justus van Broekhuijsen produced a map of the Sterkenburg estate in 1718 which still shows this Renaissance layout. The original rectangular forecastle, now the wagon square, was initially built on both the east and south sides. Under the direction of stonemason/master builder J. Verkerk, Sterkenburg was remodelled between 1754-1767. Through demolition, remodelling and construction, a forecastle was created with stables placed on the left and right and an open south side facing the garden. At present, on the west side stands the only remaining part of these seventeenth-/eighteenth-century stables in the form of the present coach house, whilst from the eastern stables only the foundations remain. Behind the coach house against the kitchen garden wall was a wagon shed which is partly still present. On the plan of the forecastle by J. Verkerk also appears the now still existing gateway of the flower garden and of the originally located bridge behind it, the foundations lie beneath ground level. The bridge spanned the grand canal which had two islands as its termination to the west and much further to the east a polygonal rustic pavilion. On a map from around 1790, a nineteenth-century copy of which is kept in the house archive of Sterkenburg, these stables are depicted as well as an Axis which extends via the gate and over the bridge in a southerly direction. The northern part of the Axis lies in the compartment above the Langbroekerwetering. The kilometres-long approach lane, which reached as far as Huize Den Treek at Leusden (the Sterkenburgerlaan), ended in the wood on a roundabout of oaks and was thus connected via a lane in a westerly direction with the Axis. Facing this structure stood a garden building which was later used for the nearby tennis court. From the roundabout there remains today still a (now dead) oak which stands as a solitary in the meadow. In the northern compartment above the Langbroekerwetering the still existing northern part of the Axis was connected with the lane via a still present narrow oak lane. In the vicinity of the Sterkenburgerlaan, in 1771 two seventeenth-century farmhouses were given virtually identical front elevations so that a symmetrical layout and appearance was achieved on both sides of the lane, which suited the late formal layout of the park. The eastern farmhouse was also remodelled into three labourers' dwellings behind which a shed was created with carpentry workshop, smithy and fire engine. Besides the geometric and formal structure of the layout, several 'varied' elements were incorporated - such as winding paths in the originally early seventeenth-century maze - which point to a cautious beginning of a landscape-style layout. A lithograph by M. Mourot from 1829 shows the early landscape-style layout near the gate and approach lane, which also depicts the early seventeenth-century (still present) hard-stone chamfered stone bollards. On a design by Hendrik van Lunteren from 1830, an image is given of an early landscape-style layout after the demolition of the gate. This design was probably largely executed and around 1835 the modifications will have been largely completed. On the Topographic Military map of 1847/1850 the approach lane is shown semi-circular and the moat has been excavated in landscape style. Around the middle of the nineteenth century the early eighteenth-century axis, facing south, receives curved sides, creating the illusion that spacious tree rows are interspersed with broad meadows, which in reality are however only narrow strips of grassland. At the same time the pond to the north-west of the house was widened and the canal by the willow lane towards Broekweg was provided with a still existing neo-Gothic bridge. The watercourse to the south of the castle which runs along the present orangery and towards the south-west drains into a ditch at the axis, was excavated into a meandering stream. Near the aforementioned ditch lay a second kitchen garden enclosed by wooden fences in the wood to the west; near the studio a bridge from this 19th-century layout still remains. The maze too received winding paths within the preserved geometric main structure. On the grounds solitaires and shrubs were also planted. At present to the south, north and east of the moated castle island there is a large meadow with some solitaires. From the bridge near the head gardener's house, which gave access to this meadow, the abutments still remain. The meadow is surrounded by an outer moat of which the Langbroekerwetering now forms a natural part. Both moats are bordered on the meadow side almost entirely by oaks. In the south-west the layout is characterised by the open landscape structure with meadows which are surrounded by woodland, wherein the aforementioned axis leads towards the Kromme Rijn. Further north lies the kitchen garden which is partly surrounded by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century kitchen garden walls with greenhouse, cold frame, iron espalier fence and remnants of a grape house and tool shed. To the north, behind the kitchen garden wall lie the remains of a cattle barn. In the north-west corner of the layout lies an originally late eighteenth-century orchard which is now bordered by swamp cypresses and has thereby acquired a somewhat more enclosed character. In the park various so-called little tents were placed, small wooden pavilions with lean-to roofs. To the east lies the meadow with the dovecote from 1862 whose ditches partly follow the direction of the medieval clearance structure and to the south a ditch placed transversely to it shows the seventeenth-century line of an approach lane. The landscape structure of the park has changed character around the orangery (restored in 1979), through a new layout with borders and lawns and the closure of boundary divisions for reasons of privacy (and thereby interrupting the axis).

Valuation

HISTORIC GARDEN AND PARK LAYOUT belonging to the historic country estate Sterkenburg, of general importance: - as a representative example of a garden and park layout in landscape style, partly preserved intact in structure and partly in detail, presumably designed by Hendrik van Lunteren, within a still in main lines existing seventeenth- and eighteenth-century formal layout; - by virtue of the fine axis which extends to the south-west and north-east of the castle; - by virtue of the significance of the layout for the history of garden and landscape architecture; - by virtue of the functional-spatial coherence with the other components of the country estate; - by virtue of the spatial coherence with the surrounding landscape.