Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Hoenderloo

The Heldringkerk was built in 1857-1858, commissioned by the Reverend Ottho Gerhard Heldring. The foundation stone was laid by his daughter on 29 August 1857. The consecration of the church took place in 1858 during the feast of Pentecost. The church is one of the oldest buildings of Hoenderloo . Heldring visited the village of Hoenderloo in 1839 and decided to offer a better future to the inhabitants, who still lived partly in sod huts. He did this by building a school, digging a well and constructing the church and clergy house. The simple hall church - in neo-Gothic style - is characterised by plastered and white-painted facades. The church is built in a hilly area and is therefore popularly called de witte kerk op de bult (“the white church on the hill”). But the white colour was only given to the originally grey church in 1980. Since 2000 the church is a national monument.

Hoenderloo is a village, which only came into existence at the beginning of the 19th century on the rough lands of the Veluwe. In the spring, eekchillers went to this area to strip felled oak trees of their bark, which was used for tanning leather. The eekchillers lived with their families in temporary huts made of sods. Heather mower and shepherd Albert Brinkenberg was the first permanent resident of Hoenderloo. He built a sod hut (a simple hut partially buried and with a roof covered with sods) between 1813 and 1815. After him, more colonists followed. The residents were poor and worked as forest laborers, sheep shepherds, and plowmen, among other things. Slowly but surely, a small colony of huts made of sods arose. It was called Hoenderloo, after the many korhoenders (black grouse) that roamed there. The reconstructed cottage is really a stone's throw away from the hut that Brinkenberg built. The present wooden house (unfortunately not open to the public) gives some impression of how sober life must have been.

The special thing about the toverhazelaar (Witch Hazel) is that this shrub blooms in the winter months (from the end of December/beginning of January with yellow/orange spidery flowers). The name toverhazelaar comes from the English "Witch-hazel", which is actually derived from "Wice-hazel". Because of this flexibility, this hazel is also said to have been frequently used as a dowsing rod. The first witch-hazel imported into the Netherlands was the American 'Hamamelis virginiana'. This was a medicinal plant among the Indians. It is still used for medicinal purposes today