BP Luchtenburg, Historische Park

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

Access to the park is formed by a curved drive which replaces an earlier straight drive (still visible on the topographic map of 1857) and was laid out in the second half of the nineteenth century. On the topographic map of 1904 the curved avenue is visible. At the end of the drive there is a teardrop-shaped lawn, on which are situated the house, tithe barn and farmhouse. Behind the house stands the coach house. The bakehouse is located to the north of the farmhouse. The house and other buildings are located in the centre of the country estate. To the west of the house lies the vegetable garden, a large, more or less rectangular, moated and surrounded by hedges and (timber) banks parcel, dating from the sixteenth century. To the southwest lies the old cross pond. As the only one of the ponds it still has its old seventeenth-century cross-shaped structure (map Arent van Wassenaer, 1713). The northern end connects to a moated raised area (the so-called Doolwater), which formerly had a simple baroque form. Via a straight avenue the Doolwater is connected with the Beukendreef. Somewhat to the south of this pond are still some seventeenth-century ponds, called fish ponds. To the east of the house lies an elongated meadow in simple landscape style which offers a long sightline over part of the country estate. The Beukendreef, the long avenue to the west and south of the house, forms a sight axis towards a dwelling built in 1898. To the south of the house is a more modest sightline in the direction of the landscape arrangement of pond with lawn. This pond with surrounding layout was formed by the excavation and connection in the first quarter of the nineteenth century of three eighteenth-century ponds (cadastral survey 1827). Around and by the pond run narrow winding paths. Further to the southeast, near the boundary with the country estate Hondsdonk, is the cross pond. This originates in some transformed seventeenth-century ponds (topographic map 1850). A path runs along the pond. The terrain around the pond is somewhat uneven. Around the ponds are many rhododendrons and some exotic trees. The Beukendreef which runs to the south of the landscape ponds and the other straight avenues on the estate originally are old reclamation axes consisting of various low dykes with ditches on one or both sides and tree and/or timber bank planting. These axes are probably largely sixteenth-century. They form visual divisions in the landscape. Originally laid out for water regulation they probably also served as cattle fencing, shelter for game (in combination with open landscape) and timber bank. The avenues are planted chiefly with oaks and beeches. The structure is filled in with wooded parcels and meadow and arable land. The meadows and fields have an irregular blocky layout. The avenues and paths are not or half-surfaced. The situation and structures indicated on maps of the Luchtenburg from 1713 and 1802 have remained virtually unchanged to the present day.

Valuation

The park layout at Luchtenburg is of general importance because of: - the structure of the park, which is determined by the (functional) old reclamation axes, among which are located on the one hand (partly functional, partly aesthetic) elements such as vegetable garden and ponds, on the other hand the alternation of wooded coppices, coppice and avenue planting with open meadows and lawns (among other things for the purpose of hunting and livestock raising); - the various park elements, each of which embodies a stage in the history of garden architecture, including: the sixteenth-century vegetable garden with walling and moating; the various ponds, which still have their seventeenth-century structure (old cross pond with cross-shaped layout and basin/raised area), or which were transformed in the nineteenth century into ponds in landscape style; the drive, originally straight, later given a curve in landscape style; - the rarity of the sixteenth-century vegetable garden and the seventeenth-century cross pond with the original structure; - the integrity of the park as a whole, which shows a great intertwining of elements from different periods that reflect the style and use of those days.