When you think European castles, England’s manor homes, France’s Chateaus or Germany’s baronial hilltop estates come first to mind. Rarely does one think of Holland, nor would it make the first cut on most castle shopping lists. Yet in Gelderland Province’s Zutphen County sits a tightly woven system of castles, open lands, forests and farms bent on preserving the rustic nature of this part of The Netherlands. 

Thousands of Dutch city dwellers flee the cramped cities of the Randstad and trek eastward to the Achterhoek or back corner of Holland for their holidays.  Here the local dialect is spoken proudly (thanks to the almost cult-like supporters of local rock bands Normaal and Jovink) and shows both strength of family and character here in the “platte grond”. 

Amongst bike paths, holiday homes, and country inns the land appears long forgotten by time.  Those appearances can be deceiving. 

Cycling Vorden’s 8 Castle Bicycle Route, most castles, the former summer residences of Western Holland’s rich and famous, are viewed at a private distance through iron gates and long entrance roads.

In contrast, the very British/Dutch E.V. (Peter) Gatacre openly shares his de Wiersse castle’s heritage.  Several days each year he and his family open the 47 hectares of formal and wild gardens to an eager public.  Featured in many magazines, the gardens are the crown jewel of this castle and something Peter, his wife Laura and their nine children have worked since 1978 to bring back after decades of neglect during and following the War.

Peter talks about his family, although not titled, his is an interesting blend of Dutch-English history.  Having spent most of his life in or near this castle, he certainly wears the preservationist role as the Achterhoek’s “Monarch of the Glen.”  Like the fictional television character, he and estate manager Jan Keurentjes work to maintain a way of life real estate revenue savvy city planners would like to slice and dice.  The battle between expansion and maintaining the status quo has waged in this region for decades.

Quips Peter, “the bombing during the war was bad, what the town planners did afterwards was worse.”  When one visits the towns and villages of this area, it is easy to see his concerns.  The construction crane is this area’s Dutch national bird as row upon row of American style tract houses take over hectares of once fertile farmland.  Some cities in this region have grown by as much as 50% in the last ten years and this trend shows no sign of easing as densely packed Western Holland creeps slowly eastward.

As we sit in a parlor off the main kitchen, Peter, now 74, reminisces about childhood summers spent sailing the creek behind the castle using only a sheet on a stick.  As a boy, he wanted to sail the world and did so from the castle grounds.  Everything needed was produced in this self-sustaining community of 14 working farms.  The grounds had their own cheese and milk factory, woodworking shop, and one of the farmhouse contains a carefully constructed orchard of flowering nut and fruit trees which every fall still provide an entire year’s supply of apples, pears and walnuts. 

de Wiersse has been in Peter’s family, on his mother’s side, since 1678 and he would like that to extend for several more generations.  With 9 children half of whom have completed studies in formal gardens, land management and museum curator ships standing at the ready, it is in good hands for at least one more generation. 

Peter’s family tree has several interesting branches.  He is the son of William Gatacre, a British-Irish prisoner of war swapped with France during WWI.  William married Alice de Steurs, the daughter of Dutch preservationist Victor de Steurs who was the unorthodox and pugnacious head of the Naional Department of Monuments, Museums and Archives and a member of the Dutch parliament.  It is de Steurs who shamed the government into creating the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the first catalogue raisonné of the Mauritshuis after several artifacts were sold to the highest bidder.

Victor’s personal collection and papers are housed in the castle’s carriage house and maintained for Dutch historians to study and one of Peter’s daughters has taken on the task of preserving this collection.

It is the gardens though, that occupy most of Peter and Laura’s heart and time.  His mother Alice began building them after the WWI.  They fell into disrepair during the second war when the family was forced to evacuate to England.  Then with the after war shortages it was difficult to maintain such a large area.  The gardens, as Alice said in an article she wrote for Floralia in September of 1924, “avoid the trap of making a ‘museum of plants’, not too many varieties, too many colors, but go for strong groups, simple combinations, repetition in a loose but regular pattern.”  It is this blend of wild and sculptured that brings thousands of visitors each year.

While Peter read history at Oxford, his heart always belonged to de Wiersse.  Peter returned after university and ran a museum near Zwolle for many years.  He would come home to the castle every weekend to work with and help his mother.  The castle was largely a weekend and summer residence because it was difficult to reach Vorden until the main road to Zutphen was paved in 1960.  Most were also without heat until residents lived there full-time.  After his mother passed away it was necessary to take a more active day-to-day role in castle management.

What started as a weekend job managing the castle’s affairs 22 years ago, now requires him and estate manager Jan Keurentjes to maintain. Together they run a business spread over 300+ hectares of forests and fields.  As Jan said, “when I started here 17 years ago on a one-year trial, I spent 75% of my time outdoors working with people on the land and 25% doing paper work, now that figure is reversed.”

This week sees him clearing the hundreds of hectares of forests of all non-indigenous trees to Holland.  Disease threatens to wipe out many strains and the government has ordered all forests so thinned to preserve the local heritage.  This means the sound of buzz saws replace the call of local wild birds.

Having spent most of his life in or on the castle grounds, Peter is a passionate voice among an informal association of 40 property owners working to maintain this Achterhoek region’s unique and picturesque heritage.  Peter will never rest in his quest to bring common sense and a preservation back to this region.  Says Peter, “once you destroy a century-old farmhouse and sell the land for tract houses you lose a connection to the past and in this throwaway society we have created we toss our history away every day to innovation.  The problem is everyone is busy innovating the same thing.” 

As I walk down the castle driveway, I can’t help thinking that that sure sound like something Victor would have said to the Dutch parliament.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it ?
(As originally appeared in Het Finacieel Dagblad English edition.)