Huis Bergh

Huis Bergh is one of the largest castles in the Netherlands, a moated complex of medieval origin on the German border that was the seat of the counts of Bergh. In 1912 it was bought by Jan Herman van Heek, a textile manufacturer from Enschede, who restored it after a fire in 1939 and, more importantly, filled it with a collection that has no equivalent in a Dutch country house: several hundred works including a substantial group of early Italian panel paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, medieval manuscripts and incunabula, wood sculpture and coins. He put it into a foundation in 1946. The result is that a castle in the Achterhoek holds Sienese and Florentine panels that would not be out of place in a major museum, shown in the rooms rather than a gallery, which is the reason to come.

What you actually see

• Early Italian panels - Sienese and Florentine work of the 1300s and 1400s in the rooms.
• Manuscripts and incunabula - the medieval books in the same collection.
• A large moated castle - the seat of the counts of Bergh on the German border.
• One collector's work - assembled by a textile manufacturer from 1912.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Guided routes with set times and reduced winter opening. The pictures are hung in castle rooms with domestic lighting rather than gallery conditions. 's-Heerenberg is small.

Nearby

The German border and Emmerich are east; Doetinchem is north-west.