About this site
I grew up in Nieuwveen — a village in the Groene Hart that sits on the bed of a drained lake, five metres ninety below sea level. Four and a half thousand people live here. The oldest firm mention of the village name dates from 21 July 1331.
This site is the story of that place, from the first peat diggers to now: the peat lakes that swallowed the neighbouring village of Schoot, the drainage of 1810, the priest who paid for his own church tower, the minister’s son who co-founded the underground newspaper Trouw, the Jostiband that started here, and an industrial estate now heated by its own treated wastewater.
Much of what is here about the years before 1970 comes from one source: the series of dates J.J. Roovers, a former municipal clerk of Nieuwveen, put at the back of his booklet Vertellingen over Nieuwveen. I found that series as a typed folder in the garage. I went through its facts, compared them against public sources, corrected a handful of dates and carried the series through to 2026, in my own words.
The aim is straightforward: to keep one small village’s history reachable, in Dutch and in English, at an address that goes on working.
Who made this
I am Cees Alberts. I lived in Nieuwveen for the first twenty-five years of my life. I grew up there and had a good time of it; I only left for work.
My father, C.J. Alberts Sr., was head of the Sint Nicolaasschool — the Catholic primary school in the village — for twenty-five years. He saw the school move from the Dorpsstraat to the Hazeweg, and retired in 1987. He never got used to being called a “directeur”; he preferred the older Dutch title hoofdonderwijzer — headmaster.
He photographed the village, too. His photographs of Nieuwveen are on vergezicht.eu, my other site.
Leidse Courant, 25 June 1987 (Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken)
ceesalberts.nl (opens in a new tab)
Corrections
If something here is wrong, the Historische Kring Liemeer keeps the collection of Nieuwveen and Zevenhoven in the Oudheidkamer at Kerkstraat 31, and sells Roovers’ booklets there too.