2024-11-22 09:00:00
“Look, we’re leaving that lump of ground for the sand martins and the kingfisher.” Jan Kromkamp (44) points to a recently excavated height along the waterway on the edge of his Sterrebosch estate, which in turn is located on the eastern edge of the Veluwe. “The kingfisher was already here, but we did not offer the bird many suitable banks to make a nest.”
The place breathes history in every respect. The Sterrebosch estate is located on the band dike in Twello, a water barrier that has already appeared on medieval maps. From the dike there is a clear view of the contours of IJsselstad Deventer. The Lebuinus Tower stands proudly on the horizon. In between, a meadow landscape with hawthorn hedges. These were previously the city meadows where farmers from the city center of Deventer grazed their cattle. Seen from the dike, a ditch meanders through the meadows from Deventer. “That is the Oude IJssel,” says Kromkamp. “It is still the provincial border to this day. Gelderland is on the right, Overijssel on the left.”
The Oude IJssel may once have been the main stream of the river that now runs a kilometer north through the landscape. Others claim that it was a branch of the IJssel, because the IJssel was once intertwined with all kinds of branches. “We then talk about the Middle Ages,” says Kromkamp. “East of Wilp, the IJssel chose a branch. It was the boundary of the city meadows of Deventer and later formed the territorial border with Gelderland.”
Unique copy
The Oude IJssel passes the outer dike edge of the Sterrebosch estate. “Over time, this historic watercourse was filled in to a narrow ditch,” says Kromkamp. “We wanted to show again how the IJssel used to flow here.” That is why the IJsselarm has been excavated and widened from 6 to 12 meters.
During the excavation work, a special cultural-historical relic was uncovered: a river cage. “It is the archetypal form of duck decoys as we know them,” says Kromkamp. When he first heard about the duck decoy phenomenon, his ears were flapping. “I had never heard of it. But it turned out to be a unique specimen. Almost all river cages in the Netherlands have disappeared. There are two more. One in the Land of Maas en Waal and here in Twello.”
A river cage is a dead-end waterway perpendicular to the river bank that served as a catch pipe for the ducks. The birds were lured or chased and then captured to eat. This happened during the moult when the ducks could not fly. The river cage served as a model for the development of the current duck decoys with a cage pond, of which there are still more than a hundred left in our country. The Netherlands once had 1,750 duck decoys.
Restore to former glory
Jan Kromkamp wanted to know everything about the history of this curious landscape element. He even went to the State Archives in The Hague. There he found a registration of this duck decoy from the years 1824, 1829 and 1834 by the Bussemaker family.
Almost all river cages have been filled in over time during work in the river floodplains. The fact that the cage still exists in Twello is due to the fact that the old IJsselloop fell into oblivion. “I found it very interesting when I discovered that we have a special duck decoy on our property. I wanted to restore it to its former glory so that I could tell the story.”
Jan Kromkamp (44) ended his career as a professional footballer in 2013. He played for PSV, Go Ahead Eagles, Villarreal, Liverpool and in the Dutch national team. He now trains amateur club CSV Apeldoorn. He lives in Sterrebosch near Twello with his family.
Love for the outdoors
The death of his father in October this year was a heavy blow to him. “My father gave me a love for the outdoors. He was a forester in Lippenhuizen, Friesland, where I partly grew up as a child.” As a tribute to his father, Kromkamp plants a lime tree in the duck decoy. “We are still trying to find out which type of linden best suits this landscape.”
His goal is to give space to nature on the estate, with respect for the historical elements. With financial support from the province of Gelderland, the old course of the IJssel on the edge of the estate has been reopened in the landscape. The province attaches great importance to the landscape and nature values of these 12 hectares on the border of the IJsselvallei and Veluwe.
“Let’s hope that the animals also discover this peaceful place. There on the bank I made a shelter for martens. I hope the otter can appreciate it too.” Kromkamp points to a bunch of stacked sawn-off tree trunks, covered with reeds. “Our drive is to add value to this ancient river landscape.”
Loach
He does not leave the work to hired experts. He works every day to help redevelop his estate. “It’s about finding the right balance between what you value and what you want to restore. My knowledge about nature has grown enormously in just a few years. I learn about species I had never heard of before. The loach, for example. I now have half a landscape ecologist in me.”
Some of the edges along the Oude IJsselloop remain wooded. Jan Kromkamp wants to restore the old coppice culture here. “Every seven years we remove the trunks and the stumps remain. This is beneficial for biodiversity. That’s how it went here for centuries.”
The current Sterrebosch estate was created from a split from the original Meermuiden estate, which was mentioned in documents as early as 1370. The star forest and the old bandijk were sold to a noble family in 1885. In 2018 it came into the hands of the Kromkamp family. The estate remains private and is not open to the public. Only visitors to the guesthouse at Sterrebosch are allowed to walk around.
Rooting marks of the badger
The dike dates from the late Middle Ages, constructed to curb the water of the IJssel. Now the dike no longer functions as a flood barrier and there are beautiful old trees. There are scratch marks everywhere from the badger, which lives in a huge family castle further down the sandy dike. “The badger can have its way here, because the dike is out of use. Outside the dike we maintain a herb-rich grassland that is not fertilized.”
Two modest swampy curves can be seen in the meadows. They turn out to be bomb craters from the Second World War, which the Kromkamp family wants to convert into pools for amphibians. “During the liberation, the Allies bombed the railway bridge on October 28, 1944. At least that was the intention. Many bombs fell in the area. The old country house on the adjacent De Dijkhof estate was also so badly affected that it was later demolished.”
The Sterrebosch estate owes its name to the avenue structure in the shape of a star. The old country house was surrounded on all sides by tree-lined avenues that ended in a central circle. “That was hip in French garden design in the 17th century. With the rise of the noble country estates, a star forest with beech trees was also planted in Meermuiden. There the nobility took walks in the greenery. On an old map from 1832, the plot of the star forest is indicated as an entertainment area. In the Second World War, the Germans destroyed large parts of the forest because of their need for firewood.”
The Kromkamp family restored the severely neglected Sterboslanes in 2020 and returned them to their original form.
The more Jan Kromkamp learns about the nature and history of his estate, the more driven he is to cherish everything. “We have lost our hearts to this place with a rich history. With hard work we will bring back the lost splendor.”
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