Open Monuments Weekend, 12 & 13 September – see the estate’s enormous diversity and visit the 15th-century gate tower, 11 am to 5 pm.
Poelwijk in the past
Poelwijk does not give up its secrets easily. Was there a castle, or several tower houses? Six hundred years of history at a glance.
More questions than answers
Archaeological research in 1960–61 clarified a number of things but raised even more questions. Only part of the grounds inside the moat was examined. Whether the unexamined part also holds tower foundations, we can only guess.
What is certain is that in the 13th century a sturdy tower house with a moat stood here. By the 15th century that tower had gone and at least two towers had been built, one of which served as a gate tower – the tower that still stands today.
Six hundred years in six steps
A tower house with a moat
A sturdy tower house stands on the grounds, surrounded by a moat. The beginning of Poelwijk as a fortified residence.
Two towers and a gate
The old tower house has gone. At least two towers are built, one serving as a gate tower. That gate tower is still standing.
Cornelis Pronk draws Poelwijk
The drawing shows a residential wing attached to the gate tower; the drawbridge has gone and the original passage has been bricked up. In this period Mr Van de Poll had trompe-l’oeil paintings with allegorical figures made in the tower’s ground-floor room.
The Breunissen family
The Breunissen family acquires the ‘old noble house and manor called Poelwijk’ with 25 morgen of land. They demolish the tower’s annex and build a house in the courtyard of the former castle: today’s Huize Poelwijk.
Friends of Gelderland Castles
After war and storm damage the tower is transferred to the Stichting Vrienden der Geldersche Kasteelen, which restores the gate tower in 1959.
The Meijaard family
Carla Linssen and Koen Meijaard buy the estate. What was meadow around a moat grows, over 45 years, into an ecological estate with enormous biodiversity.
Poelwijk through the centuries
From Pronk’s pen drawing to postcards from the last century.
A medieval landmark
The 15th-century gate tower is the heart of the estate. Once it gave access to the moated grounds via a drawbridge; today it rises between the trees at the edge of the moat.
From Studio Zuidkant you look straight at it. And from dozens of benches in the garden you see the tower from a different angle every time – a silent witness to six centuries of Gendt history.
And the estate today?
Read how Poelwijk has grown into an ecological estate since 1981, or plan a visit.