Broek in Waterland

History

Many of the houses in the village date back to before 1850. Before 1940 there had been only limited housing development. This meant that many houses were divided to accommodate several families under the same roof. The church of Broek in Waterland was built before 1400 and was dedicated to Saint Nicolas. On 26 September 1573, the church was razed to the ground by Spaniards during the Eighty Years' War. In 1628 the inhabitants of Broek in Waterland started to rebuild the church on the foundations of the old building. The pulpit was donated to the church in 1685 by a wealthy couple who were married there in 1641. It is made of ebony, rosewood and pallisander wood, which give it a dark colour and delicate texture. The church organ was built in 1832 by Wander Beekes. The church was extensively renovated in 1989. During this renovation, the original ceiling frescoes of cherubs and fruit garlands were rediscovered under old layers of paint. Broek in Waterland was a popular vacation village for sea captains in the 1600s. The town has always been famous for its cleanliness. Many 17th and 18th century travel books of foreign travellers mentioned the cleanliness and tidiness of the village.The extreme cleanliness of Broek in Waterland led French visitors in the first half of the eighteenth century to dub this dairying village "le temple de la propreté hollandaise". Just to the south of the town was the site of a major landfill. More than 10,000 drums of toxic chemical refuse was dumped here in the 1960s, most containing dioxin-rich 2,4,5-T, which was being produced in Amsterdam by the former company Philips Duphar (although they were cleared of responsibility by the courts), which were produced as the main defoliating ingredient of the Agent Orange formula, supplied to the…

Most-observed species

• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  42,219
• Eurasian Coot

  Fulica atra Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  42,002
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  37,605
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  34,516
• Gray/Purple Heron

  Ardea cinerea Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  33,954
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  33,595
• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  28,736
• Black-headed Gull

  Chroicocephalus ridibundus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  28,112

Most recent

• M 2.9 — 2008-10-11
  19 km WNW of Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands
• M 3.7 — 2001-09-12
  54 km WNW of Petten, Netherlands
• M 3.4 — 2001-09-10
  10 km W of Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands
• M 3.8 — 2001-09-09
  7 km W of Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands