Walking through historic Plantloon
The De Ketsheuvel Local History Society, in collaboration with Natuurmonumenten, has mapped out a special walking route of approximately 5 kilometers that takes you past unique sites. You can easily combine this walking route, which follows the national trail network, with a visit to De Loonse en Drunense Duinen. The Plantloon Estate is a place where cultural history and nature go hand in hand. The estate features a varied landscape with cultural-historical patterns and elements from different eras.
The hiking trail starts at the historic border between Waalwijk and Loon op Zand, the Galgenwiel. This sounds sinister, and this place used to be. Here once stood a gallows where criminals were executed. There is a special story connected to this gallows that you can read on the information panels that are there.
Discover the history of the Plantloon Estate
Over a plank bridge, we walk into Plantloon Estate. It is immediately apparent that this is not just any forest area. The trails are long and extensive and the avenues are flanked by stately deciduous trees neatly spaced. Another relic of its extraordinary past. The landscape was once laid out as a production estate around Plantloon farmstead. Wood production became an important source of income. This is how the estate as we know it today took its shape in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Meadows and patches of forest alternate as we continue walking toward the Achterste Hoeve. There are still some old farms here. Even now farmers still occupy the estate and farming is small-scale and ecological. In the landscape you walk over raised roads and small dikes. These served as a "dry feet path," in the days when floods from the Meuse were common.
What will you encounter along the way?
We walk on toward the old peat canal. At first glance it looks like a wide, shallow ditch. The peat canal was dug at the end of the fourteenth century by order of the lord of Venloon (later Loon op Zand) to transport peat in the direction of 's-Hertogenbosch, Holland and Gelderland. The canal is now only visible in Plantloon but once ran from 's Gravenmoer to 's-Hertogenbosch. A little further on you can see, hidden among the greenery, Villa Plantloon.
You can also encounter a six-meter-high mountain just like that. The old shooting range and also the bullet catcher of the Waalwijk Civil Guard were recently restored to its former glory. At exactly one hundred meters from the bullet catcher is another hexagonal stone. The official hundred-meter point of the shooting range perhaps?
The De Ketsheuvel Local History Society has compiled a route guide featuring fascinating stories about the past. This guide can be ordered through the De Ketsheuvel website.
