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Het Bildt
"Hier op `e wadden, wereld fan water en slik, won hij lând út see in weer en wyn, skep foor skep, monnikewerk". ("Here on the wadden, world of water and mud, he won land from see in weather and wind, shovel by shovel, monk work".
) This text on the monument "De Slikwerker", which is on the dyke at Zwarte Haan, typifies the history of this special area in Friesland. It is only relatively recently that the water of the Middle Sea flowed here. From the sixteenth century, It Bildt was conquered bit by bit on the sea. The successive embankments are clearly recognizable in the wide landscape, which is dominated by old, less old and new dikes. In between, from the drawing board, a very regular landscape has been plotted with straight and perpendicular roads and waterways.
The impoldering of the Middelzee provided the Frisian residents with help from large numbers of mud workers from Zeeland and South Holland, among others. Many of them continued to live in the area and mixed with the locals. This has created a language of its own, the Bildts. The influence from Holland is also evident from the earlier names for Sint Jacobiparochie, Sint Annaparochie and Vrouwenparochie: Wijngaarden, Altoenae, and Kijfhoek, three (former) villages near Rotterdam.
A very characteristic building pattern has arisen along the Oudebildtdijk (from 1505) and the Nieuwebildtdijk (from 1600). On the north side, against and on the dike, the workers’ houses and to the south of the dike, behind the dike ditch, are the often monumental farms of the weathy farmers who owned the new land at the time. In some places, the ribbon development has grown further into a village. Including the villages Westhoek and Oude Bildtzijl, along the Oudebildtdijk is the longest, more or less closed development ribbon in the Netherlands (11.5 kilometers).
Het Bildt, therefore, has a rich cultural history. But nature lovers can also indulge themselves, especially behind the current sea dike. There lies the Noarderleech. Originally this area would also be reclaimed for agriculture; low dikes (summer dikes) had already been installed. At the insistence of nature organizations, the sea now has more room and the summer polders are gradually being transformed into salt marshes.
Tranquility, space, beautiful views, spectacular cloudy skies, culture, and nature .... The Bildt has a lot to offer! It is not without reason that the most famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt van Rijn, also visited Bildt. There he met Saskia van Uylenburgh, whom he married in 1634 in the reformed church of Sint Annaparochie.
Colofon
FrieslandWonderland
