page_title: Aartswoud
section_title: Church and tower
hierarchical_section_title: Aartswoud / History / Church and tower
caption_attribution_description: This is an image of rijksmonument number 31785
context_page_description: Aartswoud is an unincorporated village in the Dutch province of North Holland, part of the municipality of Opmeer. It lies about twelve kilometres northeast of Heerhugowaard.
  Aartswoud has been inhabited since the Neolithic, and a church may have existed as early as 1395; the village still has a 16th-century church tower. Formerly a harbor settlement on the Zuiderzee, it became landlocked after the Wieringermeer was created. The village sits on the Westfriese Omringdijk, a dike completed in 1250 that protects an area of 800 km², and is now an accesspoint for several nature reserves that reclaim the land, the landscape, the water levels, and the flora and fauna of the earlier West-Frisian countryside.
context_section_description: A church in Aartswoud is attested probably in 1395 under the name Nederswout, and certainly for the years 1460–1550, according to the archives of the Domfabriek, the administrative center belonging to St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht. The inscription "1515" was supposedly carved on one of the church's beams. Before its demolition the church was surveyed and sketched; the drawings are archived at the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed.
  The present-day Dutch Reformed church dates from 1884 and was designed by C. Deutekom and C. Leeuw. Its square brick tower, in three sections surmounted by a small stone dome, is medieval and dates from the first half of the 16th century. An inscribed stone above the entrance dates repair work to 1635. The church bell was cast by Henricus Nieman in the 1620s. The tower's neo-Gothic detail stems from 1895, when the structure was covered on the west and south sides in new brick and stone and the lowest section of the north side plastered over. The current hall church replaces the late Gothic church, and has eclectic details and cast-iron window frames. It has a box pew dating from 1641, richly decorated with "beautiful examples of 17th-c wood carvings", which belonged to the Soete van Laecken family, according to a heraldic image. The church organ was built in 1885 by German organ builder Richard Paul Ibach. The large rectory was built in 1872.
  Local folklore holds that the church tower also functioned as a lighthouse, since the coast at Aartswoud was dangerous, and that fires were also built to confuse ships in hopes of them foundering, so their cargo could be stolen.
caption: Dutch Reformed church, Aartswoud
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