Hof Souburgh, Alblasserdam: A Former Castle and Historic Farm
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Netherlands
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Dutch
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- House
On this page10 sections
History
Hof Souburgh, Alblasserdam, is a historic farm and former castle in the Netherlands, established in the medieval period by Nicolaas van Subburgh. Around 1280, this knight and senior judicial official in South Holland received the lordship of Alblas as a feudal grant from the lords of Teylingen and built Hof te Souburgh in a bend of the Alblas river at Kleine Nes. The present farm and the vanished castle site are both protected as national monuments under the Netherlands’ heritage system.
Medieval lordship and castle
During the fourteenth century, Souburgh was held as a fief by the lords of Arkel. In the fifteenth century, it passed to the counts of Holland. Margriet van Kleef, the sister of Count William VI, held Souburgh as a fief in 1408, while Jan Gillisz was named as its owner two years later.
The medieval castle occupied a moated main enclosure of about 45 by 45 metres, with a secondary enclosed area, or outer bailey, probably positioned to the east. Flooding affected the area, and the castle was probably demolished during the fourteenth century as a result. Its final remains could still be seen in the middle of the seventeenth century. By the early fifteenth century, a new building had probably already replaced part of the demolished castle on a raised mound at the northeast side of the site.
Estate ownership and rebuilding
After Jan van Oudheusden died in 1542, Hof te Souburgh was divided among his six grandchildren and his son Godschalck, who served as guardian of his deceased brother’s children. Anna van Oudheusden received the Hof in 1548. The lordship had first been assigned to her brother Claes, but it ultimately came into Anna’s ownership. Two maps made for legal proceedings in the sixteenth century show a building identified as Hof te Souburgh.
A service building was added to the complex in 1596. In 1676, Dominicus d’Overschie received Hof te Souburgh as a fief. A document from 1685 referred only to a farm, indicating the changing character of the estate. Ruben van Hoven became its owner in 1735, although he lived elsewhere and leased the farm and its land. By 1752, when Souburgh belonged to Jean Gijsberto de Meij, the estate apparently included a manor house, coach house, gardeners’ houses, and a farm dwelling.
Bartolomeus and Clara Cornelia van der Star, who lived in Dordrecht, acquired Souburgh in 1800. In 1856 and 1857, the manor house and all other buildings then standing were demolished. A new farm was built on the site of the manor house in 1857, while an apple barn was constructed beside the Alblas during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Archaeological research took place at Hof te Souburgh in 2013. The farm, apple barn, and moated castle site remain protected as national monuments, including recorded monument numbers 516067 and 46221.
Remains
Castle site and former estate layout
Moated enclosure
The medieval castle site consists of a moated main enclosure measuring approximately 45 by 45 metres. The outer bailey probably lay to the east. A raised mound was formed northeast of the demolished castle during the fourteenth century, and a new house stood there by the beginning of the fifteenth century at the latest. Its builders reused large medieval bricks from the earlier castle. Only the gate piers of the two entrance gates survive from the former arrangement of the estate.
Eighteenth-century manor house
A manor house built on the mound during the first half of the eighteenth century measured 25 by 14 metres. It had a rectangular plan, a basement, a raised main residential floor above the basement, and an attic. A narrow coach-house wing joined the left side of the rear facade at a right angle, and a small tower rose from the roof. The farm stood north of the manor house, with the intervening space used as a courtyard. An anonymous eighteenth-century drawing depicts the castle, although the accuracy of its details is uncertain.
Nineteenth-century farm buildings
Present farm
The present farm was built in 1857 after the earlier buildings had been cleared. Its front house appears to occupy the location of the former eighteenth-century manor house, while the stable section stands where the 1596 service building had been. The front house contains the living quarters and follows an eclectic chalet style. It has two storeys beneath a gabled roof, a plastered front facade, and side facades of exposed yellow IJssel brick. The entrance is placed in the central projecting section of the front facade.
The stable attached to the front house burned down in 1941 and was completely rebuilt in a traditionalist style. It is wider than the front house, forming the larger agricultural part of the surviving farm complex.
Apple barn
The apple barn beside the Alblas dates from the third quarter of the nineteenth century and was built in a traditional craft style. Apples were dried there, and the building also contained a service dwelling and a carriage shed. It has two storeys beneath a gabled roof and is constructed of yellow IJssel brick.
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