De Kleine Ruwenberg

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 component 1: COUNTRY HOUSE.

Introduction

Country house, named De Kleine Ruwenberg, formerly De Ruwenberg and Huis Boecoop, originally part of a moated country estate of which the opposite coach house was also a component. Its origins date back to 1430; parts of its predecessor from 1532 are incorporated in the present house. After burning down, it was rebuilt in 1842 by P. Berail. In the front garden, beneath ground level, the foundations of a round or polygonal stair tower and an adjoining right-angled wing still lie, entirely in accordance with an eighteenth-century drawing of the property which shows the situation of 1532. The Berail family operated, among other things, a brewery and a vinegar distillery in the vanished outbuildings. In 1838 the house was the seat of the Society for the Introduction of Silk Production in North Brabant. The present country house is built in a craftsman-traditional style and lies in a park-like landscape with, at the beginning of the drive, a cast-iron railings fence between polygonal posts bearing the name Ruwenberg. Restoration circa 1990.

Description

Country house, rectangular, above a black-painted plinth entirely light-rendered, two storeys under a hipped roof with suppressed Dutch tiles. At the ridge ends a brick chimney. The front and rear façades are five-bay, below with six-light sash windows, on the upper storey with four-light sash windows. The windows of the ground floor are fitted with double clasp-on shutters. In the central axis of the front façade is the front door dating from 1842 with panels, glazing bar motifs and original hinges and fastenings. Sandstone threshold, sills and step. Above a simply profiled cornice a divided fanlight with leaded glass dating from circa 1990. Around it a partly wooden, profiled cornice. Both in the axis of the front and of the left side façade a roof dormer with pediment-like capping and angled side wings. The blind left side façade - with a six-light sash window and double clasp-on shutters on the ground floor and a four-light sash window on the upper storey - and the right part of the rear façade show traces of an older wall with brick-and-stone bond (1532). In the rear façade also traces of relieving arches with setting stones. The windows on the rear side do not correspond with those of the front façade. Apart from the window at the far left and far right below, which is fitted with double clasp-on shutters, all windows have shutters. The right side façade has three small cellar windows in the plinth, at the far left a kitchen door renewed circa 1990 with glass and glazing bars in the upper part, beside it a high-placed kitchen window with hinges fitted with a cross-window frame under four-light fanlight and at the far right a six-light sash window and double shutters. On the upper storey in the central axis a 16-light sash window with hinges. The notably blue colour of doors, frames and shutters is based on an account from 1842 in which mention is made of 'dutch blue'. The glazing bars are white, the cornice is beige.

Interiorly, the original layout of the property, as it came about in 1842, has been largely preserved. Of the old house, apart from parts of the left side façade and the adjoining parts of the rear façade, there remain the three barrel-vaults arranged parallel to each other with red ceramic floor tiles beneath the rightmost bay of the property and the kitchen above them. Behind the entire front façade with the exception of the rightmost bay lies a corridor in which an open staircase of hardwood dating from circa 1990. On the floor, as elsewhere in the wet rooms, lie multicoloured ceramic tiles of Moroccan make, designed by the occupants, also circa 1990.

Direct opposite the front door is the large living room with a stucco ceiling, consisting of a centre rosette with leaf motifs and a profiled border around it. Against the short left wall a fireplace with a French limestone chimneypiece in eighteenth-century forms, from an antique dealer. The fireplace itself is decorated with fluted pilasters and a large arabesque, all executed in stucco, circa 1842. From the room three steps lead to the right to an ancillary room, situated above the cellars. In the ancillary room with original wooden floor a bench with back-warmer, situated at the rear of the stove in the kitchen, which adjoins the ancillary room. The kitchen, nowadays accessible from the ancillary room via a cut-out cupboard, has a floor of Namur stone and a large stove, both partly dating from before the fire. Above the stove five seventeenth-century Delft-blue tiles, set in "whites". The front of the stove is clad with long cream-coloured faceted tiles from the second half of the 19th century. Above the stove a continuously profiled, running cookhook shelf, above which a pair of spice cupboards. To the side a provisions cupboard with two six-light casement windows. Above it an oculus to the original stairwell, now converted into a toilet. Beam ceiling from 1842. From the kitchen three sandstone steps lead down to the corridor. A flight of six brick steps in a partitioned room with panelled door leads to an apparently secondarily inserted entrance vestibule, arched with a barrel vault on iron girders which in turn provides access to the three aforementioned barrel-vaults. In the middle cellar a brick storage cupboard. At the end of the cellars there is always a small cellar window. On the ground floor at the far left there is still a spacious room with renewed stucco ceiling and "black marble" chimneypiece (fourth quarter of the 19th century). On the upper storey bedrooms, some of which have cupbeds and cupboards. Throughout the house old panelled doors in profiled frames. On the upper storey also clasp-on cupboard and cupbed doors. The windows have been provided on the inside circa 1990 with double glazing, so that winter windows have been created. On the attic stand five pine roof trusses with wooden mortise and tenon joints upon which triangular roof trusses, two purlins, both with wind-bracing, all from 1842. In a corner a partitioned servant's room with clasp-on door with original hinges and fastenings. On the attic part of the old staircase with profiled stairpost and balusters is preserved.

Valuation

The COUNTRY HOUSE named De Kleine Ruwenberg is of general importance. The house has cultural-historical value as a distinctive expression of a socio-economic development, as an example of a continually renewing country house in a park-like landscape, arising from a small castle. The property has architectural-historical value because of the internally and externally intact main structure and the traditional material use as well as because of interior components. Because of the good legibility of the building traces, the property is of significance for building history. Historically, the house is of importance because of its significance for the development of industry in the province of North Brabant.

The country house together with the other complex components has great ensemble value.