Zwaluwenburg House is one of the most amazing and beautiful 18th-century stately homes in the whole of the province of Gelderland. The house is surrounded by a magnificent estate and numerous out buildings, which feels quite like being in an open-air museum. Within the estate grounds, the diverse landscape is punctuated by fields, meadows and woods.
Castle Wijnbergen
Zwaluwenburg House is situated where the hilly sandy soil of the Veluwe region meets low-lying and fertile clay. Back in the 12th century, there were no dikes in the area to protect the house from the waters of the Zuiderzee. At high tide, they lapped right up against the side of the house. The predecessor of Zwaluwenburg House, castle Wijnbergen, was built here as early as the 14th century. One of its owners was the mayor of <span style=text-decoration: underline”>Harderwijk</span>, Rutger van Haersolte.</p> <p><strong>Zwaluwenburg House</strong><br />One of the mayor’s descendants commissioned the current house in 1728. The low-lying land was reclaimed and divided into large lots, whilst a park-like estate was created on the south side: an interesting mix of formal18<sup>th</sup>-century straight paths and the naturalistic 19<sup>th</sup>-century landscape style. In 1959, the country estate was purchased by a number of organisations that wanted to build a nursing home here. However, permission was never granted, and the estate was taken over by the Geldersch Landschap Foundation.</p> <p><strong>Open-air museum</strong><br />The current estate is a little bit like an open-air museum: apart from the house, there are eight farms dating from the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries, with old haystacks, hedgerows, lanes, a house for the bailiff of the manor, cart shed and a cook house. One of the farm buildings now houses a care centre. The fields and meadows are also put to good use as part of an organic farming initiative. The house itself is privately owned and is not open to the public. </p>”
