Aduard Abbey

Aduard Abbey

In the 12th century a Cistercian monastery has been founded on a deserted man made hill (wierde) at what is now called the village of Aduard in the northern part of the Netherlands. This monastery extended to one of the most important and well known monasteries in the northern part of the Netherlands. The monks undertook a lot of civil works like diking, poldering and cultivation. They developed a watering plan, building floodgates en bridges. They build an enormous monastery complex with a lot of buildings. At the end of the 16th century the monastery was due to the political situation suddenly closed down and dismantled. The old construction material as the famous stone bricks (kloostermoppen) were used to build new houses and buildings, as it forms the old contours of the village of Aduard.

 

Archeological investigations

Around the second world war the well known Dutch archaeological professor Van Giffen did some excavation in the centre of the village of Aduard. He discovered parts of the monastery church and some parts of a medieval sanitation system. This has been the latest excavation at the place where the monastery was situated.

 

Ground Penetrating Radar

The historical society of Aduard wants to know more about the history of the monastery and especially of the remnants of the probably large amounts of buildings which once have been on the monastery site. They asked  Medusa  to carry out a research about the remnants of buildings in the subsurface of Aduard. Ground penetrating radar is used to get information about the remnants of the monastery buildings.

 

Also local media did some reports of these investigations:

http://www.rtvnoord.nl/nieuws/nieuws.asp?pid=97036

Dagblad van het Noorden