Qualla: Geertruidenberg Castle https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:33 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Geertruidenberg Castle https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle Geertruidenberg Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle/ Photo credit A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling, Public domain. Workmen replacing a sewage pipe at Wilhelminaplein on December 13, 2001 felt their tools strike something that should not have been there: brick, deep, deliberate, and very old. They had hit the north tower of Geertruidenberg Castle, a fortress that the town had quarried into oblivion four and a half centuries earlier. The municipality had sold its own walls to itself, recycling 18,000 bricks at a time until even the memory of where the castle stood became a guess sketched into a 16th-century map. The 2001 strike turned guesswork into proof. What followed was an emergency dig, ground-penetrating radar, and finally, in May 2022, the partial resurrection of a wall.

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Image: A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/u15q-geertruidenberg-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Geertruidenberg Castle: A Wilderness Worth Defending https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle/ Photo credit A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling, Public domain. In 1319, Count William III of Holland looked south from his county and saw a problem. Geertruidenberg sat on the soft edge of the Grote Waard, a diked agricultural island ringed by rivers and threatened by the ambitious Duchy of Brabant just across the marshes. Brabant had alread...

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Image: A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/u15q-geertruidenberg-castle-a-wilderness-worth-defending.mp3 0:06 2 full Geertruidenberg Castle: Hooks, Cods, and a Long Siege https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle/ Photo credit A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling, Public domain. The castle's heyday was brief. After Count William IV died heirless in 1345, Holland fell into the Hook and Cod Wars, a generational squabble between factions backing rival claimants. Geertruidenberg, with its strong castle and politically nimble castellans, became a chess piece....

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Image: A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/u15q-geertruidenberg-castle-hooks-cods-and-a-long-siege.mp3 0:06 3 full Geertruidenberg Castle: A Castle Quarried by Its Own City https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle/ Photo credit A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling, Public domain. In 1525, Geertruidenberg asked Emperor Charles V for permission to demolish what remained of the castle. Permission came with one condition: the bricks must be reused to fortify the town. So the city ate its own monument. Account books show the trade flowing in for over twenty ye...

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Image: A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/u15q-geertruidenberg-castle-a-castle-quarried-by-its-own-city.mp3 0:06 4 full Geertruidenberg Castle: The Radar Says Yes https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle/ Photo credit A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling, Public domain. The 2001 sewer strike changed everything. Within days, archaeologists were down in the trench, photographing red brick foundations 27 by 13.5 centimeters thick, laid in courses ten deep. A 32-meter section of the northeast wall came to light the following April, 140 centimeters t...

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Image: A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/u15q-geertruidenberg-castle-the-radar-says-yes.mp3 0:06 5 full Geertruidenberg Castle: A Wall Returns https://qualla.com/geertruidenberg-castle/ Photo credit A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling, Public domain. Bas Zijlmans, the archaeologist who had led the first excavations, was 85 when he gave the official start signal in October 2020 to rebuild a 25-meter stretch of wall along the original foundations. The project nearly collapsed under municipal bickering over who would lead it, ev...

Read more: Geertruidenberg Castle on Qualla

Image: A.A. Beekman & R. Schuiling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/q/geertruidenberg-castle-wp/u15q-geertruidenberg-castle-a-wall-returns.mp3 0:06 6 full