Orvelte

Orvelte is a Saxon farming village on the Drenthe sand with thatched hall-houses of the type built across the north-east - the boerderij where family and animals lived under one roof - and in 1967, when such villages were being modernised out of existence, the municipality decided to restore it as a living monument, with the Stichting Orvelte set up in 1968 to run it as a museum village. That means the buildings are preserved, cars are kept out of the centre, and craft workshops operate in some of them - a clog maker, a smith, a bakery - while the farms remain lived in and worked. It is a genuine village with a preservation regime rather than a reconstruction, which puts it somewhere between Orvelte's neighbours and a skansen. The Drenthe landscape around has hunebedden, the neolithic megalithic tombs of this region, and the Ellertsveld heath.

History

The village is first mentioned in 1362 as "in Oervelde", probably "the other side of the heath field", and grew up in the Middle Ages on the road from Westerbork to Zweeloo. Its Bruntingerhof, built between 1560 and 1650, is the oldest surviving farm in Drenthe and was moved here in the 1960s; in 1967 the village was made a protected site and became a museum village, with farms and barns due for demolition elsewhere moved in (Wikipedia, Orvelte).

Highlights

• Saxon hall-farms - thatched houses where family and animals lived under one roof.
• A village kept whole - preserved from 1967 rather than reconstructed.
• Working craft workshops - clog maker, smith and bakery in the buildings.
• Farms still lived in - a working village under a preservation regime.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Good to know

Parking is charged and cars are excluded from the centre. Workshops keep seasonal hours and are commercial. It is small and busy with families in summer. Houses are private homes.

Nearby

Hunebedden are scattered across Drenthe; Assen and the Drents Museum are north.

Key facts