Haarlemmerhout
The Haarlemmerhout (Haarlemmer Forest) is an urban forest on the southern city limits of Haarlem and is considered the oldest park in the Netherlands. It used to be part of a larger forest that stretched as far as the Haagsche Bos . It is home to the Weligart country house .
The Haarlemmerhout became particularly popular in the Dutch Golden Age , when wealthy merchants and their families sought peace and quiet in the great outdoors in the summer months. Her eye quickly fell on the then still rural Haarlem, which at that time was still a real journey from Amsterdam. Those in search of recreation created recreational areas within the then significantly more extensive forest and had parts laid out in a park-like manner, with the presence of forest and water (the spaarne ) being the most important points of attraction.
The current spatial division of the urban forest dates from 1830 and was designed by Jan David Zocher , a well-known Dutch architect and landscape planner, who designed it as an English landscape garden. The forest was divided into different areas:
- Stadtwald Grote Hout (Great Forest)
- Stadtpark Kleine Hout (Small Forest)
- Nature area Eindehout with Landgoed Eindehout
The nature reserve on the north side of the city forest also includes the Welobile country house built by banker Henry Hope (around 1785–1811) from 1785 to 1789 . Hope likes to refer to the Haarlemmerhout as its "publicly accessible front yard". The estate was later expanded to include Frederikspark, the first villa park in Haarlem, which was also designed by Zocher. Hope's preferred line of sight into the forest was retained, and most of the old trees were left, so that today there is a remarkable number of old and mighty trees in Haarlemmerhout for the Netherlands.
The residential areas around the Haarlemmerhout today house villas and luxurious accommodations and are reserved for wealthy residents. Land prices are among the highest in the Netherlands.
