Deurne (Brabants: Deurze) is the largest town in the Dutch municipality of Deurne, province of North Brabant. Deurne is located between Helmond and Venray. Other centers in the municipality of the same name are Liessel, Vlierden, Neerkant and Helenaveen. The municipality of Deurne in its current form has existed since 1926, when the former municipalities of Deurne and Liessel and Vlierden were merged. More recent border corrections took place in 1968 and 1997.
Deurne is largely located in the cover
sand landscape of the Central Rift. Only the eastern part is on the
Peelhorst. There, impermeable layers in the soil allowed extensive
bogs to form, the current Peel. Inhabitation in the Deurnese
covering sand area was already to be found in prehistoric times. We
see more fixed habitation from the Neolithic, when agriculture began
in the Low Countries. Due to depletion of the soil, the settlements
had to be relocated every time.
The place name Deurne in the
oldest mention Durninum (721) is a dative meaning a place overgrown
with thorns. This description probably indicates a characteristic
vegetation in the late prehistoric or early Middle Ages. In that
period too, farms must have been located in the vicinity of the
later core of Deurne, possibly under the current Koolhof, and in any
case on the Bottel.
Only around 1200 do we see a gradual
fixation of the settlements in one place. Farms were given a
permanent place and were no longer demolished every generation and
rebuilt elsewhere. Some of these settlements were then in the hands
of the Abbey of Echternach, which also owned the
Sint-Willibrorduskerk. The village of Deurne grew around this church
in the late Middle Ages. The village of Liessel was created in the
same period around a Sint-Hubertus chapel, Vlierden around a chapel
on the Kapelweg.
In the late Middle Ages, a settlement
pattern with a large number of hamlets was established. They lay on
the various smaller cover sand ridges along the brook valleys of the
Aa, along small cover sand heads in the field and around the large
cover sand island of the Deurnese field. Administratively, Deurne
was part of the Kwartier van Peelland under the ducal Meierij van
's-Hertogenbosch.
Neerkant and Helenaveen only emerged as
villages in the 19th century. Housing construction in Deurne gained
momentum after the Second World War. The first project was carried
out on Lindenlaan; the first modern terraced houses were built here.
After that, the projects on Hellemanstraat, in the Pastoorsbuurt and
the plan d'Ekker were carried out, all on the edge of the old
village center.
Deurne enjoys national
fame because of the De Wieger museum, once the home of the painting
doctor Hendrik Wiegersma. Wiegersma was a legend. He was a general
practitioner in Deurne in de Peel and had five sons. One of those
sons was Friso, a partner of Wim Sonneveld. He wrote the song "The
Village" for him, after a song by Jean Ferrat (La Montagne) with
memories of his lost childhood ("the garden path of my father").
Hendrik Wiegersma himself previously supplied the material for the
renowned novel 'Dorp aan de rivier' by Antoon Coolen (1934), a
mixture of his own life and that of his father Jacob, who in the
book served as a model for the village doctor Tjerk van Taeke . He
himself played a leading role in a number of regional novels by Toon
Kortooms (b. Deurne), including "Help, the doctor drowns" from 1968,
which was later also made into a film.
In 1918 Wiegersma
bought a cheap piece of land on the edge of Deurne, the former
Galgenveld. He then had Cor Roffelsen, an architect from Helmond,
build a house in neo-Renaissance style, the current "De Wieger"
(1922), named after the nickname given to the doctor in the village.
After his death, if none of his children wanted to live there, the
house would have to be demolished to the last stone.
Saint
Willibrord Gymnasium
Deurne also had national fame because of the
minor seminary annex regional gymnasium on the Vlierdenseweg just
outside Deurne. Until the early 1960s, lessons were mainly taught
there by the Fathers S.V.D. (Societas Verbi Divini), an order of
mission. Most of the students lived there internally and were
trained as priests / missionaries. The number of externals was
initially in the minority, but would increase over the years, while
the number of lay teachers also grew. The first girls entered school
in 1966. In the 1990s, the last students left the building, after it
had been previously designated as a mission house. In 1996 a working
group was started to consider the future of the building. This
eventually led to the opening of the Conference Hotel
Willibrordhaeghe in 2004, on the condition that the then residents
(fathers and brothers) could continue to live on the site for as
long as they wanted. Now Fletcher Hotel restaurant Willibrordhaeghe,
since its takeover in 2016.
Deurne has its own local history circle, named after the historian and local historian Hendrik Ouwerling. One of the aims of this association is to create a collection of things related to the history of Deurne, Liessel, Helenaveen, Neerkant and Vlierden. The local history circle has copies of birth, marriage and death certificates, prayer cards of people who were born, married, died or lived in Deurne and photos of Deurne and everything related to it, such as people, associations and companies.
Deurne has had a railway station since 1864, namely
Station Deurne. Intercity trains run here between Schiphol and
Venlo, and a Sprinter between Den Bosch and Deurne, making the
station a terminal and transfer station. Public transport by bus is
available via lines 28, 262 and 266 from Hermes and line 80 from
Arriva.
Deurne is accessible via the exit of the A67 at
Liessel or Ommel / Asten and the village of Deurne is connected to
the A73 at Venray via the Langstraat N270. On the other hand, the
N270 connects Deurne with Helmond and Eindhoven.
Deurne has a
center ring, consisting of Europastraat, Dunantweg, Houtenhoekweg,
Heuvelstraat, Lage Kerk and Hogeweg. Other bypasses are the
Helmondsingel / Langstraat (1970s), Binderendreef (circa 2000) and
Vlierdensedreef (circa 2005). Since May 2016, the southern diversion
(the Garlic Path) has connected the Vlierdensedreef and
Liesselseweg.
Saint Willibrord's Church
Small Castle
Great Castle
Museum de Wieger
Holten's Mill