Ferwerd,Ferwert ( Fries officially), is a village and capital of themunicipality,(Gemeente) of the Fries Gemeente, Ferwerderadeel (Fries:Ferweraderadiel, ).
It lies between Leeuwarden and Dokkum, and is near by the Wadden sea, (Wadden Zee).
To the west , lies the village Hogebeintum, and nearby lies Holwerd.
Ferwerd Hervormde Kerk.
The church in Ferwerd used to be Catholic, and is now a 'Dutch Reform' Church,
(Hervormde Kerk), and the tower was built around the 1500's.
From the tower one can apparently see the island Ameland very clearly.
To my knowledge the organ in the church was once in the 'Saint Dominicus' church, in
Leeuwarden, and the organ was repaired about 1983.
The tower has three bells out of different years, the bells range from 1383,
to around 1426 and 1457. on the south wall of the tower there is a sand stone clock,
and was renovated around 1704.
What I found amazing was that through a arched window in the church there
was a large statue, (beeldt), of either our lady, (Mary), or one of the saints as we
saw only the back of the statue.
We arrived in Ferwerd, it was a lovely clear day with a bit of wind, very fresh, now and
again the wind took your breath away., but as they say in the Netherlands, 'dat hoort er
bij', in other words, 'that is to be expected'.
Maybe once the town house?
When we walked through the main center of the village(if one can call it a village),
I never expected Ferwerd to be so big, (I thought it would be a tiny village), with
a few houses in it, in through one end and directly out the other end in a few seconds
flat....but what a delightful surprise awaited our eyes.
Statue of a soccer player with inscriptions of tournaments (wedstrijden).
It would seem that the further North one goes towards the coast the more you find in
these delightful characteristic villages. This statue in front of this building is of
soccer players, of various years, tornaments I think, (wedstrijds).
Characteristic building with old cart wheel in front for decoration.
The photo that we took of the'Beschuit Factory' in Hallum, apparently began here
from a tiny bakery in Ferwerd, (which we saw) the name plate was marked on
the wall next to the door, which is now a house today.
It began in the year 1910, by a man named, Hessel van der Meulen.
You can read about their companies history on their web-site in,
Google: under, Van Der Meulen, it makes very interesting reading.
A house on corner with bay-window and balcony on top.
We walked through the village of Ferwerd and there was so many old and intersting
buildings,it had lovely cobbled streets and a lot of buildings with historical interest,
for instance the church.
Hervormde church with Annie in front.
They are at this moment renovating the tower, and what was quite unusual to see
was the builders had put wooden covers over the head stones of the graves, so they
would not get damaged while they worked.
There was a lot of scaffolding about, and there was a gravel path running around the
circumference of the church.
Marja sneaked this photo of Me (Grace), looking at the inscriptions on the grave stones.
While we were walking around the church on this path, we came across some buildings that were businesses before, now houses, with little information tags put on the wall.
For instance one was called, 'the Kosterij', and the other 'the arm?' something in Fries
but I think it may have been an orphan home or lodging? in the past.
Statue of a dove on a gatepost.
We then came across a quaint old building with lots of back doors on and this gave me
the impression that perhaps it had been a convent for the nuns in the past,
attached to the side of this building, was a archway leading to a square in front of the
convent (or houses, that they are today), and there was a statue in the middle of the
square commemorating war time veterans.
Archway leading to the square in front of what I think used to be a (cloister), houses.
We then walked out of Ferwerd, came to the main road and saw across the road was
a long a narrow road, that led to the inner dyke by the wadden sea. so we walked there.
A farm house on the corner, by the inner dyke.
How lovely, there was a lovely big farmhouse and barn on the corner and it was so
silent and no wind (as the dyke blocked it), and there was another farm further down
flanking the left side of the road, then we saw a wooden gate, and saw we could walk
to the top of the dyke, which we did, I with a bit of diffuculty as the ground was frozen
and wet in some patches and wearing boots and not hiking shoes made it rather slippery,
no grip, but I got up there in the end, it was worth it.
view from on top of inner dyke.
The view was fantastic, we could see the islands Ameland, Teschelling,Tessel,
Schiermonnikoog, Vlieland through a light mist, covering the islands in the distance,
and between the inner dyke and the sea dyke was patches of fields covered in grass
that was slightly yellow and brown in colour, (which made me a home sick, all of a sudden
for Rhodesia (the elephant grass), and South Africa, (the Veldt), how I had forgotten this.
We continued walking along the top of the dyke and saw the ferry leaving Holwerd for
Ameland, I have never visited the islands, but I will certainly now.
The ferry leaving Holwerd to Ameland.
We walked down the side of the dyke and found another narrow road that led back to Ferwerd and walked back to the car, what a lovely outing, yes!!! Ferwerder's you can bevery pleased with yourselves and your village, we have never been greeted too, so much,by so many friendly people and passing the time of day with us, as in this village,we felt very welcome!!!!I will be back again.
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