Doetinchem with the Slangenburg Estate and St. Willibrord's Abbey

Slangenburg Castle and the Slangenburg estate date from the late Middle Ages. As the manager of this area, Staatsbosbeheer tries to maintain the valuable historical structure and restore it where possible. One of the many walking lanes The park around the castle is one of the best preserved examples of Dutch garden design from the seventeenth century. It was laid out in 1679 entirely in the then leading formal park style by General Frederik Johan van Baer. The characteristics of this style, straight lines with a geometric pattern, have been well preserved. For example, there is a driveway of over 1 km long with two square ponds on either side in each other's mirror image. The straight driveway is almost perpendicular to an enormous lane system in the shape of a double trapezium, which are planted with stately beeches and oaks. click here to see the rest of this page In contrast to most estates in the Netherlands, the park style of Slangenburg has hardly changed over the centuries. Only the back garden of the castle was transformed into a landscape garden in 1799 and a deer park was built at the front at the beginning of this century. The landscape garden contains beautiful trees, such as an old tulip tree and three enormous red beeches. The age of these impressive giants is estimated at around 300 years. Other striking estate elements are the cemetery of the Passmann family, the last private residents of the Slangenburg, and the St. Willibrords Abbey. The back garden of the Castle click here to see the rest of this page Since 1950, the Slangenburg estate has been owned by Staatsbosbeheer. The maintenance of the historical significance requires a lot of attention. Old estate elements, such as the Rondeel, a circular place where four lanes meet, and the old orchard are being restored, while the high-stemmed fruit trees, with old cultivars such as the mulberry, the morel and the quince, have been replanted in the original square garden areas. The Slangenburg estate currently includes 6 tenant farms. They date from the previous century and are maintained and restored in the old style. The farms are important for nature; without arable land, for example, there would be no partridges living on Slangenburg. The transitions between agricultural land and forest are also very important: these edges are particularly rich in plant and animal species, including many butterflies. St. Willibrord's Abbey St. Willibrord's Abbey, of which Slangenburg Castle is the Guest House, is located a few kilometres south of the castle. The idea of founding a Benedictine monastery in Gelderland first came up in 1932 (at that time there was only one Benedictine monastery in the Netherlands, St. Paulus Abbey in Oosterhout), but this plan could only become reality in 1945, when it was discovered that Slangenburg Castle was empty, because the German owner, Hermann Passmann, had been forced to give up his property. The Slangenburg became a temporary home for the Benedictine monks and in the meantime negotiations were started that eventually resulted in the purchase of over 63 ha of the Slangenburg estate, thanks to a donation from the Oosterhout Abbey. On that land, the monks themselves built the new establishment in the years 1948 - 1952, to a design by architect Tholens, which they occupied in 1952. Shortly afterwards it was decided to use the Castle as the monastery's Guest House. Benedictine monks live according to the Rule that St. Benedict wrote around the year 540. They are people who seek solitude, silence. It is in silence that man learns to find himself and can thus come to contemplation and prayer. The monks try to give themselves to what is called "the contemplative life". They believe that it is important for the larger society of the world that there are communities of prayer, which evoke a perspective that is not limited by time and space, which determine ordinary life - they point to another reality that the believer calls God. People need God to find peace and happiness. By seeking God, the monks hope to help the world in that quest for peace and happiness.