Ending on Deep and Delightful…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

This is my last post on our visit to Ammersoyen Castle,  …we managed to visit before the full  “tourist” season began and apart from about 15 other people and the guide, have had the place more or less to ourselves.

Here are a few of the “detail photos” that didn’t make it into my other posts.

If you read my blog regularly then you will know I adore stonework, decoration and quirky…  so feel free to drool with me over these to your hearts content.

The guides here are volunteers, very knowledgeable and friendly.  If you don’t speak Dutch however, you would be at a disadvantage since all of the information was almost exclusively given in Dutch.

That didn’t pose a problem for Family Kiwidutch personally of course, but if I could think of one single item for improvement of our visit, it would be that an English language Tour be added into the castle schedule at least for specific days and times  to make these beautiful places more assessable for International visitors to The Netherlands.

Of course these tours are mostly made up of volunteer workers and  the people with the most time to volunteer at the hours wanted are often the older generation who’s families have flown the nest and who, upon retirement are free of the constraints of employment.

Therefore  it should not be  any  surprise that this group of people are also the generation who feel  least comfortable speaking English in public.

Still, I do wish someone would be brave and proactive to set an English language tour in motion, because there was an Italian couple on the same “tour” as we were and Himself and I spent a lot of time translating information.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Not at all a problem on our part, as we were delighted to be of help, but some of the other Dutch in the tour were less patient with our whisperings (which I thought was totally their problem and not ours).

If you look at this previous post http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/new-316/ and check out the sixth photo from the top, you will see a small box-like structure sitting to the right of the castle bridge Gateway, nestled on the wall between the gate and the round tower closest to you. (direct centre of the photo).

This little “box” is actually a dove-cote, seemingly precariously positioned, and definitely full of rustic character.

My close-up photos reveal that  mesh has been placed across the entrance holes.

What no birds? but maybe there are, as some of the bottom holes have been freed of their mesh and I’m sure it’s a valuable winter residence that hasn’t gone unnoticed by some little winged friend.

The photograph of the well, is for me a reminder that it’s simply amazing what our medieval ancestors were capable of building, because this was a loooong way down.

Just in case you are wondering about the health and safety aspects of this shot,  No, not even I could fall down this one, the camera lens is slotted through a heavy iron metal grid that prevents the curious and accident prone from taking a quick trip to the bottom.  Similarly, the “long drop” toilets were very aptly named, but the light was so low that the photos were  out of focus and useless.

This castle, less of a tourist target, less “commercial” as far as marketing is concerned is, we believe a little gem.  Apart from the dungeon there was a nice feel to the place and you could tell that restoration had been done by people for whom this was a passion as well as a project.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The Artistry of Capturing the Family Portrait…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

People  have always liked to have images of family members.

In the last decade, digital camera’s have revolutionised both the ease and cost of capturing images of your family for posterity.

Camera’s have become affordable and easy to use.

Between the evolution of the camera and the internet, the Digital Age has made “photographers” and “journalists” of us all.

(…or so many of us would like to think LOL).

The wish to have and leave a tangible reminder of our human presence has always been with us, around the world we find representation of people in cave art and sculpted in stone.

Before the camera was invented, the medium of choice was the Painted Portrait.

Clearly you had to be a person of means in order to have one, but it was a specialised niche that kept artists employed for centuries long.

Ammersoyen Castle has it’s fair share of portraits…

…most of them pertain to it’s more recent past as far as counting the centuries go, and these items often spent time in other castles or safe havens in times of political, social or personal upheaval.

These paintings made me smile. Naturally members of the same family often bear a striking resemblance to each other, but I get two feelings from these paintings…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

First.. this painter is more interested in painting finery than faces… rightly or wrongly I get the impression that it’s even possible that the dresses were painted first and the heads added later, the silver dress even appears to have been semi “recycled”  in two different portraits.

(Yes, apparently these are all different people!)

That said, the quality of the painting in the dresses is undisputed.

Secondly… I get the impression that the artist “did” pretty much only one sort of face.

Probably the sameness of the hair styles combined with family resemblances accentuates this, but  I giggled a bit as I saw them all since they were so similar.

These days important events in life are  swiftly documented, be it delight or disaster, anyone with a pocket point-and-shoot or even a mobile telephone can record an event often in the moments of highest drama.

Even if these portraits make me smile, I can appreciate that unlike today, the “masses”  of many time in history wouldn’t have a hope of making an image like this.

Portrait painting is today still very much a very niche market, and the Art of sitting for a family image like this is in danger of being an experience that even fewer of our generation, or those who follow will ever experience.

I think that’s a little sad, both for the sitters and the Artists.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

You Aren’t Getting Out of This One…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

It came as no surprise that a castle this old contains a dungeon…

It’s deep in the base of one of the round towers and consists of a circular chamber that is approximately 3 times as tall as it is wide.  Entry,centuries ago  (our volunteer guide tells us) was via a trapdoor in the ceiling.

There is a small recess in one part of the wall but other than that, no other means of exit or entry, no light  and probably no  furniture of any sort.

We are told that prisoners thrown down here invariably sustained injuries from the fall, and life expectancy after incarceration was short.

In recent decades when the castle was restored, a small doorway was made to give the visiting public  access to the dungeon, but there is still a short, steep wooden set of stairs to negotiate if you actually want to step down inside.

Confined spaces don’t bother me too much but I’m not great with heights so I didn’t brave these stairs but the rest of Family Kiwidutch did and they said it was ok to look at for a few minutes but it wasn’t in any way welcoming and they dreaded the idea of being locked up here in the dark.

Our guide took questions from people doing the tour with us and one of the questions asked was “ why not just dig your way out,  at least try and escape?!“

Our guide replied: … “first you would have been in good enough physical state to dig though stone with your bare hands and second, the walls here are  7 meters thick!“

My measurement converter tells me that 7m = 22.97 feet.

No-one mentions this kind of thing in fairy tale castles… and the dark side of the way human beings have treated their enemies is as old as mankind itself.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

History Built, Torn Down and Restored…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Let’s look inside Ammersoyen Castle and find out more about it’s history: the first photo is fairly similar to how it all looks now, but it’s looked very differently at various times over centuries past.

Around 1386 Willem van Gulik, Duke of Gelre took the castle by force and retained occupancy for 25 years. In 1412 Duke Reinald V gifted Ammersoyen Castle to his  illegitimate son; Willem van Wachtendonk, who in 1424  sold the castle to Johan van Broekhuizen, Lord of Waardenburg.

The Van Arkel family came into ownership of the castle by marriage in 1496 and subsequent generations of this family lived in it until 1694 in spite of it being damaged by siege and occupation by Burgundian troops under Count Hendrik van Nassau.

The castle suffered invasion and occupation again by Spanish troops in 1574, but the retreating troops of Prince Willem van Oranje fled swiftly, saving the castle from serious damage.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Sadly the castle’s luck ran out in 1590 when it was destroyed by fire, and the political uncertainly of the 80 Years War  meant that that rebuilding of the ruin did not start until 1648,  a project that took 19 years to finish as unusually for the time, they chose to rebuild it in the former medieval style.

Although 17th Century modernizations were added during the rebuilding, many medieval elements remained hidden behind plaster and bricked up doorways.

French troops invaded the Netherlands in 1672, destroying many castles on their path.

The last Lord of the Van Arkel family saved the castle by paying a ransom of fl 7000,-  to the French. This left him financial difficulties and when he died in 1694, ownership of the house passed to several families from the Southern Netherlands (present day Belgium).

It wasn’t however permanently inhabited at this time because its owners spent most of their time at their estates in the Southern Netherlands.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The last Lord of Ammersoyen was  Baron Arthur de Woelmont.  who sold the castle, completely emptied, in 1873 to the Roman Catholic Church of Ammerzoden, presumably after he lost a game of dice with the local priest.

The Church then founded a convent in the castle. The moat was filled in and a large chapel was built against and incorporated into the castle.

The  religious use of Ammersoyen Castle ended when it was heavily shelled by Allied troops in World War II.

After the war the remaining structure was used by a local business man as a factory producing washing machines, and as the village hall until 1957.

In that year the “Friends of the Castles of Gelderland Foundation“  bought the castle and started an extensive restoration which succeeded in finished bringing castle back to it’s medieval splendor by 1975.

I thought these were old cannonballs but we are told by the volunteer guide that these are the “ammunition” that was fired from invaders catapults…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

This damage not from catapults but from the Second World War…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Wrecked rooms show the enormity of the  renovation project… however the silver lining was that during the work, medieval staircases were discovered that had been ‘covered over” by occupants in previous centuries.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Items recovered during the renovations…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Notice there are no forks… they hadn’t been yet invented at the time that these spoons,  knives  and plates were made…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Before the restoration the moat had been drained and the Catholic Church had added a building to the side of the castle walls… this building has been removed to restore the castle back to it’s original state and the moat refilled.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The post-war washing machine factory occupied this space in the lower castle and it was decided to utilise the space as a visitor centre and cafe area … sorry the photos are dim as these rooms are on lower levels and the windows are deep set and  tiny…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There’s also small table with local produce and goods…naturally we had to buy one of these delicious looking round cheeses…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

tapestry on the wall…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Ammersoyen Castle comes into Full View …

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Since I’m still not mobile, here are some more posts from the thousands of photos I took last year but didn’t manage to squeeze into last year’s blog posts.

I make notes at the time of taking my photos and add research later and based on this, I hope you will join me in another one our Dutch countryside adventures.

Last year Family Kiwidutch have resolved to build in more visits to places and attractions around the Netherlands,  because it was clear that otherwise our children would eventually have greater experiences of many other countries than the one they actually lived in.

We determined to build in family days and weekends into the year where we would be “tourists in our own land” and one of the ideas that quickly occupied popularly near the top of the wish list, were visits to some (semi)local Castles.

This is how we found ourselves outside the entrance of Kastel (Castle) Ammersoyen.  We arrived early and have already explored the Gate House and Coach House, as well as the grounds around the moat in my previous day’s posts.

Constructed by the Van Herlaer family around 1350 Ammersoyen Castle sits on a branch of the Maas River.

It’s rectangular layout of four wings, a central courtyard and massive round towers in each of the corners is similar  in formation to  Castles Radboud, Muiden and Helmond found elsewhere in The Netherlands since this layout was thought at the time to be the idea form for a defensive structure.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Arriving Early and going Exploring…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We are back to my castle visit posts… naturally I’m busy here with phone calls and emails to New Zealand as we sort out incoming and outgoing information about what’s happening with our Christchurch house and houses and workplaces of friends and family. If there is anything significant to report I will let you know.

Back in The Netherlands this post is another “teaser”  since we have arrived at Castle Ammersoyen  in Gelderland but have not yet gone inside.

There is however a good reason for this not only are the Kiwidutch offspring restless after the ride on the car, but the opening hours of this Castle are:

April till November, Tuesday until Sunday from 13:00 till 17:00. Only guided tours.

Himself and I allowed some additional commuting time for possible traffic problems, but on this occasion didn’t encounter any delays and arrived unexpectedly early.

The kids are delighted with this time to kill before the Castle itself opens, and  go charging off down the paths like the bulls of Pompolona with nothing to chase but themselves.

Once they rounded the first corner and we were out of sight they were less brave and scuttled back quickly, even though we had almost the entire area of grounds to ourselves.

As we walked they contented themselves with snaking back and forth just ahead or just behind us, checking out “flowers” (weeds) by the canal and investigating some shells that turned up in the path.

Let’s take a look at the views around the moat…

Once we have slowly made a circuit of the grounds we approach the bridge that connects the bailey with the castle… and the excitement of what’s inside starts to build.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Just across the field by the road is the church…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

When Out-Buildings make a Grand Entrance…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I’m turning this post into a bit of a mystery tour,  because although I will tell you where we are,  I will not be taking you inside the main building we are here to visit  right away.

We have arrived at Kastel (castle) Ammersoyen.

A moat completely surrounds Ammersoyen Castle and there is also a Bailey upon which is built a separate coach house and gatehouse.

This is connected by a bridge to the land beyond the moat, and then with another bridge  to the castle itself.

I want to walk  around these beautiful buildings first…

We walk onto the bailey and look around, and then to stretch our legs because after an hour and a bit in the car, our  kids need to expend some of their copious quantities of restless energy before going  inside  the castle.

The walk around the bailey and moat  gives us a sense of the scale of the place and of how it was thought out and built.

The coach house did not only house livery, but also servants, trades people and sometimes soldiers at various times too.

Soon we shall delve into History, but for now, scenery is the order of the day,

First we look at the Gate House … because Where better to start than with a grand entrance!?

Then, in the later photos, the Coach house, a far bigger building than it first appears.

Even though it is basically one large rectangular building, the  structure on the inside is subdivided into separate areas for very specific uses. These days it’s a function centre catering to weddings, receptions and various smaller events.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)