Whensday: History of Neerharen

Just down the street there is discrete hammering and building noise. The village church is surrounded by scaffolding all the way up and around its discrete little tower. The building is being restored, the limestone cleaned and replaced, the roof  and gutters completely replaced and the mortar between the stones cleaned and repointed. It will still be many months before anyone other than the dedicated small group of restorers are able to approach the church building. We drive by it every day on our way out of the village and remark at any progress we can see. 

This little church building was built in the neo-roman style in 1875, but the village has a much longer history. Peoples, including the actual Romans, have been crossing the river at this spot for quite some time. There are graves from around 800 B.C. and Roman artifacts everywhere. Many of these things were found when the canal behind our house was dug. This canal is a connecting canal between two larger canals which lead to the two largest harbors in Europe (Antwerp or Rotterdam). 

We live on the Castle street, although it used to be called the Church street. When our village was incorporated into the town of Lanaken (which is made up of 7 villages), they renamed our street. But it was named the Castle street because this street led to three different castles in the area. One of these has disappeared, but the other two still exist. 

Neerharen took part in the 80 years war and the various Spanish succession wars. It was burned down in the 18th century because of this. The house across from ours is the oldest in the village and dates from after this time. It was built in 1818, well after the wars and well before our own house was built in 1936. Much earlier, in the 16th and 17th centuries, there were all sorts of trials against witches and several women were condemned and burned in Neerharen. This all seemed to stop around 1620. 

Although there is a good bit of history that took place in this area, we have simply been enjoying the area with our various guests this week. A walk along the canal, which is mostly peaceful if you watch out for the bikes, and the rural setting - as much as this is possible within 10 minutes of Maastricht - make for a restful spot. We are thankful for being able to host some good friends along the way. This week Dale and Vicki Hawley stopped in as well as Tom McKleroy. Both of them were on their way elsewhere, but made time to spend with us as well. Neerharen has always been a place of comings and goings. 

(You can find more pictures here of the area where we live).