Grow Old Along With Me…

It’s fifteen months now since we moved into the farmhouse that is now our home. The farmhouse has always been known locally as "De Witte Wand" – the White Wall. This struck us as a bit odd, since there is no white wall in sight anywhere on the property. It’s a brick building. We asked our neighbours about the name, and one of them said that originally, the farmhouse on this site was not built of brick, but of wattle and daub. The walls would then have been whitewashed, hence the name.

At some point in the farmhouse’s history, the wattle and daub walls have been replaced by bricks. The original timber frame was kept during the rebuilding, but the roof was enlarged. You can see the original roof frame in the attic, inside the larger frame that now supports the bigger roof.

 

We don’t know when that was done. We do know that the farmhouse has been on this spot since at least 1828. We know that because it is marked on a Kadaster (Land Registry map) that was made in that year.

Here’s a photo of the farmhouse taken at some point in the 20th century, when it was still a working farm. As you can see, it is a brick building by the time of this photograph.

 

The original of this photo is in the possession of the family that originally farmed here. It shows the front of the farmhouse, where the family would have lived. The rest of the farmhouse was the stall for the cows and the stable for the farmhorse. The outbuilding was where the pigs were kept. The family sold off the farm and some of the land, I think in the early 1970s. The farmhouse was bought by a doctor, who used it as a weekend cottage until 1980. At that point it was put back on the market and sold to the people who lived here until we bought it from them last year. Here’s an aerial shot of the farmhouse as it was in 1980.

 

You can clearly see what was originally the large entrance to the cow stalls at the rear of the house, although by this time the doorway has been replaced by French windows. The couple who bought the farmhouse in 1980 did extensive renovation and remodelling of the interior space. They also developed the gardens that surround the house.

Since buying the house, we have done little major work on the interior, apart from putting in a new kitchen. The gardens are being reshaped by Martin to become his concept and design. We’ve had no regrets about moving here, and hopefully we can continue to enjoy this house for many years to come.