Menkemaborg

A borg is the Groningen version of the fortified manor - a landowner's house on a moated site in the clay country, of which the province once had hundreds and now has about fifteen. Menkemaborg at Uithuizen is the best preserved: a medieval core rebuilt around 1700 for Unico Allard Alberda into a symmetrical brick block in three parts, moated, with a formal garden restored to the 1705 plan including a maze, a herb garden and clipped hedging. It became a museum in 1921 and the interiors are furnished throughout to the early eighteenth century - panelled rooms, tiled kitchen, box beds set into the walls, a dining room laid, tapestries - which makes it one of the more convincing period-furnished houses in the country because the furnishing matches the building rather than post-dating it. The Groningen clay landscape and the wierden villages are around.

What you actually see

• A Groningen borg - the provincial fortified manor type, of which few survive.
• Furnished to about 1700 - panelling, tiled kitchen, box beds and laid tables.
• A garden to the 1705 plan - maze, herb beds and clipped hedges restored.
• A moated symmetrical block - the house rebuilt in three parts around 1700.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Closed Mondays and reduced in winter. It is small - half a day including the garden. Uithuizen is a quiet village at the end of the line. The region has earthquake damage from gas extraction, visible on some buildings.

Nearby

Fraeylemaborg is south; the Wadden dyke and Lauwersoog are north.