Oud Poelgeest is castle in

Oegstgeest Oegstgeest () is a town and municipality in the province of South Holland in the western Netherlands. Its population was in . Etymology The portion ''geest'' in the name refers to the geest lands, which were excavated in the seventeenth cent ...

, north of

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, that was the former home of the Dutch scientist

Herman Boerhaave Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch botanist, ...

(1668–1738). He was a Dutch

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

and

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

of European fame.

History

The castle was built in 1668 on the foundations of an earlier construction, in the then popular Dutch Neoclassical style.Dutch Rijksmonument site 515703 (see also 515706 and 515708) It was probably built by the Haarlem architect Erasmus den Otter. The former castle, whose stone well from 1550 still exists in the woods, had been destroyed by the Spanish in 1574. Boerhaave bought the castle in 1724Official website
/ref> and designed the garden for his large botanical collection that no longer fit in the

Hortus Botanicus Leiden The Hortus botanicus of Leiden is the oldest botanical garden of the Netherlands, and one of the oldest in the world. It is located in the southwestern part of the historical centre of the city, between the Academy building and the old Leiden Obs ...

. This site was renowned during his lifetime and rivaled

Hortus Cliffortianus The ''Hortus Cliffortianus'' is a work of early botanical literature published in 1737. The work was a collaboration between Carl Linnaeus and the illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret, financed by George Clifford in 1735-1736. Clifford, a wealthy A ...

, the garden of his friend and sponsor to

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. He traveled back and forth to his friend's garden and to the

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

trekschuit Trekschuit (, literally ''"tug-boat"'', but true meaning ''"tugged-boat"'') is an old style of sail- and horse-drawn boat specific to the Netherlands, where it was used for centuries as a means of passenger traffic between cities along ''trekv ...

. All who traveled back and forth between

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

and

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

would pass this castle and wonder at the many foreign plants and trees. A tulip tree in the park that was planted by Boerhaave himself lived until the 1990s.

Later changes

The onion domes were added after Herman Boerhaave's death by a later owner in 1866, along with the coach house (also a monument) in 1867. Today, Oud Poelgeest is used as a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

, with the old castle hosting conferences. The surrounding park is protected as a

rijksmonument A rijksmonument (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands ...

, as well as all of the older buildings around it.RM numbers 515704-515708

References

{{Authority control Botanical gardens in the Netherlands Parks in South Holland Hotels in the Netherlands Castles in South Holland Rijksmonuments in South Holland Oegstgeest

History

Later changes

See also

References