New year meeting Utrecht region
Description
On Saturday 23 January 2010 from 13.30 hours you are welcome to visit Slot Zuylen. The Utrecht Region will then hold its New Year's Meeting starting with a visit to Slot Zuylen in Oud-zuilen.
The history of Slot Zuylen starts around the year 1250. At that time, Steven van Zuylen built a keep along the Vecht, a square residential tower with walls 2.70 metres thick. The foundations were excavated during a restoration and are still visible in the terrace today.
In the early 15th century, the tower was owned by Frank van Borssele (the fourth husband of Jacoba van Beijeren). During the Hook and Cod Wars, the keep was destroyed by the Utrechters. They wanted more freedom for their city, while Van Borssele was a supporter of the central authority of the Burgundian dukes. After the destruction, only a ruin remained for a century.
Around 1525, Count Willem van Rennenberg had a new castle built on the old ruin and fitted with a gatehouse. Shortly afterwards, the States of Utrecht included the castle in the official list of knight's estates. In the early 17th century, Adam van Lockhorst bought the castle as a summer residence. By doing so, he wanted to emphasise his still young noble status.
When Van Lockhorst died, the only heir was only four years old: his granddaughter Anna Elisabeth van Reede. Her mother had died; her father had remarried his niece, who had a son from a previous marriage: Hendrik Jacob van Tuyll van Serooskerken. People liked to keep possessions in the family, so when Anna Elisabeth was 13, she married her cousin and stepbrother Hendrik Jacob. This marriage in 1665 made the castle the property of the Van Tuyll van Serooskerken family, which remained so until 1951.
Slot Zuylen is traditionally a water castle, whose earliest history goes back more than 750 years. The structure of the moats continued to determine successive garden designs for centuries. The size of the garden can be called modest at 1.5 hectares, but within the canals a surprising number of elements from various style periods have been preserved. Apart from the monumental snake wall and the many flowering plants in spring, this diversity is its greatest charm.
The gatehouse, dating from the 16th century, is the entrance to the garden and castle. The garden tour leads to the orchards with old fruit varieties and to De Ster, a geometric figure consisting of ten triangles with a circle as their centre, both remnants of the formal garden style of the 18th century. Through perennial borders, picking gardens and rose gardens, the tour leads past the 120-metre-long snake wall dating from 1740. In the sheltered curves of the serpentine wall, subtropical fruit varieties are grown, as in the past.
13:30 Reception with coffee and tea
14:00 start tour
15:45 start New Year's reception with drinks
~17:00 end
Location
Organiser
Utrecht region
Name and contact details for information
Roel Troost