Erik and
Ineke Somsen are living in ‘Farm of the year 2000’
compiled by Erik
Somsen {701
Hidden among high oak trees just across the castle of Maarsbergen there is the farmstead ‘De Cruijvoort’. The painted shutters in red, yellow and green, immediately strike the eye when one approaches from the road. It is as if the old farmhouse with the huge roof of old Dutch tiles and the low sides, the old cooking house and the garden with its beech hedge around know of this prize. It lies there, stately, shining in the sun as a distinguished old lady, conscious of being an essential part of the Dutch landscape and our cultural heritage. Since 1982 this historical farmstead has been inhabited by Erik [701] and Ineke [702] Somsen-Brouwer and their three children Arjan [710], Lianne [711] and Hester [712]. The seventeenth century farmstead is a national monument and this year it received the title ‘Farm of the year 2000’.
The prize for the ‘Farm of the year’
is awarded annually by the Farm Foundation Utrecht. This year for the first
time to a farm which is not anymore used as such. This honour fell to the share
of the farmstead ‘De Cruijvoort’ because it serves as an example in the pursuit
of the preservation of the most characteristic appearance. On June 24 Mr D.H.
de Kok, a member of the House of Representatives of the Province of Utrecht, in
charge of the cultural heritage, presented the award to Erik and Ineke Somsen.
Then he built a memorial stone in the corner of the farmhouse.
The farmstead ‘De Cruijvoort’ is part
of the historical countryseat of Maarsbergen
and was appointed a national monument in 1998. ‘De Cruijvoort’ was already
mentioned in old documents from 1716, but certain parts of the farm are even
older, dating from the seventeenth century. In 1889 the farmhouse was
drastically changed into its present shape by the estate owner of the time, the
nobleman K. A. Godin the Beaufort. Until 1982 it was a real farm. After that it
became a private house in which the tradition of its origin can be traced down.
For Erik and Ineke Somsen ‘De Cruijvoort’ is a
dream that has come true. Both of them grew up at a farm. Erik at the farm ‘De
Snieder’ in Lintelo, (Somsen Omnes Generationes picture page 115), and Ineke in
Groningen.
When the opportunity arose to get a long lease
of the farm the decision was soon taken. ‘De Cruijvoort’ is part of the
countryseat of Maarsbergen. The colours of the shutters still show this.
The old Christian symbolism of the colour red
is love, suffering and sacrifice.
Yellow stands for faith, beauty and
glory. Green is the symbol for hope,
humility and contemplation. Black symbolises firmness and perseverance.
Ineke and Erik have come across all these
symbols after years of restoration activities.
This was not a matter of course though. Erik:
‘The farmhouse was in bad repair. The first couple of years we had to break
down a lot and clear way a lot of rubble, nose about in old documents to find
out how it had been in the past and next we had to rebuild and restore it in
the traditional style. Part after part. At one time we tackled the old living
room where we restored the large open fireplace, another time we tackled the
decomposed straw beneath the old Dutch tiled roof. Next we restored the old
pigsty and the cooking house where the original oven, which had been bricked
up, appeared again.’
The yard was also thoroughly treated. His wife
Ineke mainly took care of the totally neglected yard, which was changed into a
traditional farmyard bordered by a hedge of beeches. Here we find the
ornamental garden with a square of four palm borders symbolising the four
compass points and the four seasons. Around the meadow
a new wooded bank was planted and Ő
a frog pond was made.
Not all of the buildings had to be broken down,
on the contrary. The monumental farmhouse with its typical annexes as the
cooking house, the haystack with its thatched roof, the pigsty and the cart
shed had been well preserved. The interior of the house still has various
seventeenth century elements like the old oak crossbeams, the semi-circular
arches that are still visible in the old fireplace, the arched cheese-cellar
with brine basins. Under the floor there are still the original antique
unglazed tiles.
The back still has its traditional style with
its large door to the thrashing floor, doors for the dung and a hatch for the
hay that had to be loaded from the wagons on to the loft. Though the
restoration of the haystack is still on next year’s program the Somsen family
has finished the major part of the restoration.
‘In the cooking house we regularly bake bread
in the old oven which is fuelled with wood like last year on ‘Open Monument
Day’. Then Ineke and I are baking bread dressed in the traditional farmer’s
costume of this region and the spectators love it’. ‘De Cruijvoort’ has always
been a farm belonging to an estate and it is our aim to make it look the way it
was at the end of the nineteenth century.
Not only as far as the interior of
the farmhouse is concerned, but also as far as the geography of the yard around
is concerned. ‘Simple, but in style, in accordance with the old traditions of
the old farm-yard’ Ineke explains.
At the front of the house there is
the garden with the kitchen garden, the herb garden, the orchard and the
ornamental garden with close-trimmed hedges and beautifully flowering roses and
all sort of country flowers like dahlias and begonias. Next to and at the back
of the farmhouse there are three fields for the sheep, the horse and the
ponies. In the yard there are also some 25 bantam fowls. And of course there
are a dog and a cat.
A daily but nice care for the Somsen family
and a
good way to relax
after a day’s hard work.
For Erik, who earns his living as a manager of
estate management and ground management with ARCADIS and as manager of Fagoed,
an agricultural investment fund and for
Ineke who is a teacher of religion at four elementary schools. But also for the
children Arjan (22), the eldest son who is studying to be a landscape designer
at the Wageningen university and for Lianne (21), the eldest daughter who
studies in Utrecht to be a teacher in elementary schools and for Hester (16),
the youngest who is doing her final year of high school. For the whole family
living at ‘De Cruijvoort’ has become a way of life.
Both the name of Somsen and the name of Maarsbergen refer to an originally swampy residence. The Somsen family name has been derived from the old Dutch word ‘somp’, meaning swampy land. Maarsbergen has been derived from ‘Meers berg’ meaning ‘marsh near the mountain’. Maarsbergen is situated between the lifted area of the Utrecht hill range and the Gelderse Vallei, which is situated at a lower level. In the past this area used to be low
and boggy with swampy marshland. In this swampy marshland there was a ford, a shallow place, north of the castle of Maarsbergen, where transport with a ‘crude’ or ‘cruijdewagen’ (handcart or wheelbarrow) was possible. In this place there is the farmstead ‘De Cruijvoort’. Coincidence or not: Somsen, the swamp man living at ‘De Cruijvoort’, a ford in the swamp near the mountain in Maarsbergen. ¦
Family E. Somsen
before their home
l-r: Lianne [711],
Hester [712], Arjan [710],
Ineke Somsen - Brouwer
[702],
Erik Somsen [701]