Round Langedijk

You can safely call West Friesland a region with its own character. For example, the region in North Holland has its own dialect in which typical personal names occur. The area within the West Frisian Omringdijk has a quiet agricultural landscape with long ribbon villages. With this tour you drive through a number of those ancient villages. A beautiful route that is rich in cultural history, because you cycle past the Broeker Veiling, among other things.

While cycling you will see many monumental churches and buildings, such as old bell-shaped farms. The old mills are of course not missing in this reclaimed area. Near the village of Zijdewind, which once lay on the shore of a now reclaimed lake, stands the Slootgaardmolen, a polder mill from 1590. This mill is the only one in the Netherlands with a completely iron reel cross. Just before Nieuwe-Niedorp is the Kostverlorenpolder, a hull of a former polder mill from 1860. This mill replaced a predecessor that had burned down due to lightning. The mill was dismantled in 1912. The hull now functions as a house.

Just before Oud-Niedorp you pass De Hoop, a corn mill from 1641. A little later you pass one of the three ruined churches that remain in our country in the Dorpsstraat. It is the ruins of an originally thirteenth-century church that burned down in 1977 due to lightning. The still standing walls date from the seventeenth century.
In Veenhuizen, the seventeenth-century mausoleum of nobleman and diplomat Reinoud van Brederode (1567-1633) is located in the Reformed Church. The church also has an authentic bell tower. In the cemetery behind the church are buried three English crew members who crashed with their bomber in a nearby meadow in 1940.

Just before Heerhugowaard you pass the Polder Hensbroek, a polder mill from 1866. In Broek op Langedijk you cycle past the monumental wooden auction building from 1912. The auction has been held in the open air since 1887. With the new building, which stands on stilts, the gardeners could sail through the auction hall with their vegetable barges. There is another historic auction clock here. In 1922, the building was expanded with a lounge so that the products were not exposed to bright sun, rain and other weather influences. In this Broeker Auction, horticultural products were auctioned at auction for the first time in the Netherlands. Today the building serves as a museum.