Oud Amelisweerd

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

Description

HISTORICAL GARDEN AND PARK LAYOUT. The garden and park layout in its present form was created in broad outline around 1770 at the behest of the then owner Gerard Godard baron Taets van Amerongen. It is a well-balanced park exhibiting both formal and early-landscape elements. North of the house, a formal avenue structure encloses a trapezoidal wood with early-landscape winding paths. The wood is divided in two by a long formal access and viewing avenue along the axis of the house. In extension of the northern access avenue, south of the Kromme Rijn, a second tree-lined access avenue was projected onto the house. This southern avenue does not extend in front of the house (lack of space), but runs via a bend and a bridge over the river to the forecourt on the park side. This asymmetrical solution is concealed by a crescent-shaped pond along the axis of the house between the Kromme Rijn and the straight course of the avenue. The early-landscape English Garden west of the house is mentioned in the sales announcement of the country estate from 1810 and must therefore have been created between 1770 and 1810, likewise at the behest of Taets van Amerongen. The announcement provides a detailed picture of the country estate at that time. There was a large kitchen garden with peach and grape houses, pineapples and flower boxes, two "cribs for the forcing beds" (cold frames?) and fences with many exquisite fruit trees. Behind the garden was a large storage place, a carpenter's shed, a fire engine house, an ice house, a menagerie and an aviary. Furthermore there were "fine plantations, English gardens, fish-rich waters and basins and two apple orchards". The walled kitchen garden lay west of the house by the river. On maps of around 1900 two small buildings are depicted at the edge of the kitchen garden, possibly the menagerie and aviary. Both small buildings disappeared in the course of the twentieth century, the kitchen garden is in use by an organic horticultural business. The apple orchards were situated between the English Garden and the Kromme Rijn and in a long strip along the eastern boundary of the country estate. In the north-eastern corner of the site an orchard is still present, a new orchard has been planted west of the kitchen garden, the remaining orchards made way for building and pasture land in the course of the twentieth century. The courtyard within the moat was transformed in landscape style in the course of the nineteenth century at the behest of one of the descendants of Paulus Willem Bosch van Drakestein. The trapezoidal wood, the English Garden and the formal and early-landscape avenue system have remained substantially intact since their creation in the late eighteenth century.

Valuation

The HISTORICAL GARDEN AND PARK LAYOUT belonging to the country estate Oud Amelisweerd is of general importance:

- because of the moat around the main building;

- because of the formal avenue structure, including the two tree-lined access and viewing avenues north and south of the house;

- because of the age of the tree stock, which partly dates back to the time of the first landscape layout (circa 1770);

- as a representative and well-preserved example of a formal park with early-landscape elements from the last quarter of the eighteenth century;

- because of the visual-spatial coherence with the other components of the country estate;

- because of the visual-spatial coherence with the country estates Nieuw Amelisweerd and Rhijnauwen;

- because of the defining, landscape, cultural-historical and recreational value of the estate, in particular for the city of Utrecht.