The Garden Village De Riet in Almelo has a rather
peculiar elongated shape with an undulating street that connects a main thoroughfare
(Bornsestraat) with the train station
via a number of garden squares and greens, Two additional curved streets run of
the garden square at the "entrance", one of which ends in a small
green and another at the edge of a small park. In between there are two
additional shorter streets that run more or less parallel and end in a green. Unwinesque
design principles clearly favour a village-like setup with a central space within
a nuclear layout, short streets and T-junctions. The grounds that could be
acquired limited the design of the garden village De Riet. The result is a very
creative solution that translates the underlying medieval landscape of
farmsteads and fields into a new (sub)urban environment.
The estate of De Riet in green under the garden
village, shows how the land available was used to maximise the number of
dwellings but also adhere to most of the design principles laid down by Raymond
Unwin. The other landholdings are outlined in green and can be translated into
subsequent additions and expansions.
In Twenthe and Drenthe large estates with several
farms were commonplace right into the 20th century. Ownership is held by the
-often urban- elite, although in Almelo much land was owned by the Lord of the
Manor (the Count of Rechteren Limpurg). It was on his land that the first
social housing was developed in Westeres not far from Almelo House. The situation south of the town was different
with many estates owned by other individuals interspersed by smaller manorial landholdings.
The pattern is typical for medieval cultivation on sandy soils with rounded
fields that mark the initial sites with more regular parcels adjacent. The
rural lanes follow the land and twist and turn. More often than not the lane
runs across the farmyard.
In the Lower-Saxon part of the Netherlands farms are
named for the owner or for a certain characteristic. Farms with names ending in
-ing or -ink are common in both Drenthe and Twenthe, but are absent in this
location; names ending in -man and -boer are present though. Most names refer
to the owner or occupant of the farm ('t Knaap, 't Kobus, 't Fekkert, 't
Lammerts, de Mooyman, 't Straatman and Dikke Hendrik) or the situation ('t Revenboer,
't Schöppenboer, 't Muisebelt, 't Fenmerhuis, de Juppele, 't Steege, 't
Nieuwland, De Riet and Reigers Hofte). The latter is the initial manorial farm,
the name is a reference to a place with herons. The wet ground is also alluded
to in De Riet (on the stream), 't Muisebelt (swampy hump), de Lage Kuyle (the
low pit) and 't Fenmerhuis (house on a peat bog). The Farm 't Nieuwland (the
new land) was split in 't Groot Nieuwland and 't Klein Nieuwland. Similarly 't
Reigershofte was split (the daughter farm being Schöppenboer, a name referring to
a barn), as well as De Riet (the name de Buitenriet refers to the location on
the other side of the stream the Weezebeek).
The original landscape of farms and rural lanes
underlying the garden village De Riet. Although the garden village was named
for the farms De Riet (R1) and Buitenriet (R2) at the southernmost end the land also included the
fields of 't Reigers Hofte (RH) and 't Revenboer (a reve is a narrow strip of
land). This Farm 't Revenboer (R) is clustered with 't Muisebelt (M).The large
garden square is located between 't Langhuis (L) and a cluster of houses on what
used to be the farm De Poffert (P). The small farms on the westside were
developed field by field, these include: 't Fekkert (F1), de Lage Kuile (LK),
't Kobus (K), 't Schöppenboer (S1), Dikke Hendrik (DH), 't Steege (S2), 't
Straatman (S3), 't Fenmerhuis (F2) and 't Lammerts (L). The postwar expansion
took place on land of the farms 't Groot Nieuwland (gN), 't Klein Nieuwland
(kN) and de Juppele (J).The farms 't Mooyman and 't Knaap aren't shown.
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