Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: beschermd dorpsgezicht

Kolhorn - picturesquely located behind a dike - is surrounded by a sea of green meadows. It is hard to imagine that the village was once a fishing village beside the (former) Zuiderzee. The village of “Colhorn”, as it was called in 1573, was located on the Zuiderzee until 1844. Due to the creation of some polders it now lies at the heart of the West-Frisian landscape and about 20 kilometers inland. Kolhorn is mentioned for the first time in 1288. But probably it refers to the mooring place, a small harbour which was so called at the location where later the village arose. The first mention as a village is in 1518 when it is called “Kolhoiren”, although the church bell in the belfry dates back to 1418 and may indicate that the village has existed at least since then. Kolhorn nowadays is a Dutch protected village-scape.

In the past the village of Twisk was a linear settlement, but since the end of the 20th century there are also side roads with new buildings. The village has just more than 1.000 inhabitants. Twisk is a conservation village - with fifty listed buildings - and has two churches, one of which is a late Gothic church and many old farmhouses. It even has one of the highest concentrations of so called stolpboerderijen , a kind of farmhouses typical for this part of the Netherlands. These ‘pyramids of the polder’ had their hay barns in the center of the house ; box beds were built beside them, as it was nice and warm. The village was mentioned in 1245 as Twisca and in 1639 as Twiscke . The name of the village is derived from the old Frisian twisca , which means "between". Twisk must have been a hamlet on a road between two other villages. Today Twisk is a combination of lovingly restored farms and houses; some of the them date from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. When visiting the picture-postcard village of Twisk, it feels if you are taking back a step in time.

Hoog Soeren - the chapel, dating back to 1904.