Van Gogh NP Walking Route Helvoirt

Story of the route

The story of Vincent van Gogh in Helvoirt

• The year was 1871. Diagonally opposite the Protestant church in Helvoirt, new residents moved into the stately vicarage on 31 January. It was the Van Gogh family. Father Theodorus – the brand-new village minister – and his family would live in the vicarage on the Kerkstraat, later Torenstraat, for the next four years. It was a ‘detached house with a garden and a plot of land for growing potatoes’. The house dates from 1657 and was about 200 years old at the time. 
• Vincent, a 17-year-old teenager, had left his family home two years before. He was working as the youngest clerk at Goupil Art Dealers, first in The Hague and later in London and Paris. Despite his adventurous travels, Helvoirt felt like ‘home’. He stayed there many times, for example during Easter and Christmas. ‘If one truly loves nature, one finds beauty everywhere. Yet, I sometimes yearn so much for Holland & especially Helvoirt.’ (Vincent wrote in a letter to his brother Theo, London, 30 April 1874).
• That summer, he once again travelled back to his home base. The natural surroundings made an impression on Vincent. The beauty was comparable to the countryside from his childhood: rich in forests, heaths and marshlands. He lovingly drew and later painted those landscapes. The Noordbrabants Museum exhibits some of his pieces.
• Helvoirt was a main source of inspiration for the artist in the making. In the summer of 1874, he drew things from his immediate vicinity, such as the vicarage and the Protestant church. On his return to London, he wrote: ‘My passion for drawing has again vanished here in England, but maybe inspiration will strike again one day.’ (31 July 1874.)
• In those days, Helvoirt had 1,450 residents and four streets. Besides farmhouses there were also a few country estates for the ‘distinguished people’. Up until 1880, there was no train station here. The ‘diligence’, a mail coach for passenger transport with – for the time – reasonable suspension, rattled along the Keiweg towards ’s-Hertogenbosch.
• Vincent visited his family in Helvoirt for four years. At the time, the landscape was dominated by marshlands, small fields and pollard willows, which are so characteristic of his later work.
  
  Start of the walk
  
• We start at the car park at Saint Nicholas Church, which was built between 1901 to 1903 to replace the simple ‘Waterstaatskerk’ (a church built by the Ministry of Water Management). The restored national monument is exceptionally beautifully decorated.
• Next to the church square we find Het Pomphuiske (the pump house). Before the Van Gogh family moved to Helvoirt, dysentery plagued the village. It was an epidemic that claimed the lives of 30 residents. Het Pomphuiske provided pure drinking water and served as a sort of news kiosk.
• We cross over the level crossing. When the first steam train came past here in 1880, the peace was violently shattered. During the construction of the railway track, there were fierce protests from the pastor and Vincent’s father. Their efforts were in vain, however, and they lost the battle.
• We walk further in Vincent’s footsteps. This is where he strolled through fields with a ‘view of Helvoirt’. His made his eponymous sketch in the summer of 1874. If we look back just after junction 65, towards Helvoirt’s church tower, it is as if we are wandering through his sketch. ‘Vincent’s’ pollard willows complete the picture.
• The Van Goghs were friends with the aristocratic De Jonge van Zwijnsbergen family. They celebrated Christmas on the estate of the 18th century Zwijnsbergen Castle and were allowed to walk on the grounds. In 2001, a fire reduced the castle to ashes, after which it was restored to its former glory. Joan de Jonge van Zwijnsbergen had a key role within the Protestant community and was on the church council with Vincent’s father, Theodorus.
• We pause at Hotel De Guldenberg for a culinary pit stop. With the Loon and Drunen Dunes as our backdrop, this Nature Gate is the perfect start and end point of many walking, cycling and mountain bike routes. The name Guldenberg refers to a small sand hill that used to lie in the swampy area here. The farmers had to pay one florin to pull their carts over the hill.
• The shelter of the woods makes way for an open meadow area with the lovely Hengstven nature reserve. In the 1930s, the area was drained for agriculture, but the Dutch Society for Nature Conservation and the dune famers have since restored the old fens. Heath also got the chance to grow again. Hengstven connects the arid sand landscape with wet marshland, providing a varied habitat for animals and plants.
• We take time to contemplate at some of the Resting points with views of the village. Sit down on the benches and seats. Here, you can experience the peace and beauty of the country life and the view over the farmlands like Vincent did.
• We arrived in the middle of the so-called Brabant Sahara. The Loon and Drunen Dunes,at over 3,500 hectares, form one of the most extensive areas of shifting sands in Western Europe. The typical dunescape of sand, woods and fens originates from the last Ice Age.
• At the crossing in the hamlet of Distelberg, we approach a farm from 1702. A painted wooden panel adorns the side wall, from which it appears that Napoleon and his entourage came past here on 6 May 1810.
• While we imagine ourselves back in time, we pass old farms and wander along asparagus fields. On our left is the ‘Voedselbos Het Loonse Bos’ (The Loon Food Forest). A vibrant food forest was created here, which is rich in biodiversity.
• Fans of local farm products, including prize-winning cheese, can indulge themselves at Boerderijwinkel Ons Jos. The authentic farm from 1890 – the year of Vincent’s death – houses 65 Montbéliarde cows. As dune farmers, Jos and Caroline and daughter Laura van Esch are guardians of the agricultural landscape. They connect farmers, land, countryside and residents through their products. We cross over the charming Zandleij. This stream was once landscaped to keep the nature area wet and runs from Tilburg to Cromvoirt.
• As we traverse the Zwijnsbergen Castle estate, we can see Helvoirt with its pollard willows in the foreground. Time stands still for a moment. We walk back in Vincent’s footsteps to his beloved Helvoirt.