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 only a few. Menkemaborg at Uithuizen is one of the best preserved: a medieval core rebuilt around 1700 for Unico Alberda into a symmetrical brick block in three parts, moated, with a formal garden re-laid in eighteenth-century style with a herb garden and clipped hedging. Its heirs gave it to the Groninger 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'll find

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

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Things to know

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 is north and Lauwersoog is west.

Key facts