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An uncompleted motorway: National Highway 50 North of Apeldoorn are the remains of a motorway. Construction started around 1936, but the work could not be completed during the Second World War. After the war, new insights emerged, and a different route was chosen. Large parts of the unfinished highway are recognizable as an open strip of land between strips of vegetation. A large pile of sand indicates the place where a viaduct was to be built. The spatial plans of the municipality of Apeldoorn ensure the protection of these special landscape elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since De Vries’ publication Barges and capitalism (1981), the general opinion is that the oldest draft canal (Dutch: trekvaart) in the Netherlands was built between Amsterdam and Haarlem in 1631. But this is not true! In 1610 a 14-kilometer-long draft canal, the Grift, was already put into use between Arnhem and Nijmegen. It was even possible to transfer in Nijmegen to a barge that sailed to Holland. This was a direct connection of the Grift with the traffic system of the province of Holland. The Grift was filled in during the 1930s but its course is still recognisable in the present road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between the seventh and twelfth century ad large-scale iron production took place in the Veluwe region (Central Netherlands) based on the extraction of iron-rich loam concretions in the regional ice-pushed ridges. This iron production required large amounts of charcoal which were produced by the large-scale burning of semi-natural and/or coppice woods. There is palaeobotanical evidence that the woodland vegetation of the Veluwe diminished by two-thirds in this medieval period, partly because of medieval woodland reclamations, partly because of charcoal-burning. A master thesis project revealed the existence of an extensive and largely untouched iron production landscape in the coppice wood of ‘t Asselt (Southeastern Veluwe). Based on ceramics from the eighth-twelfth century, historical-geographical relics as well as written evidence this early and high medieval landscape layer seems rather complete and untouched, which makes it a very promising site for further archaeological research on medieval iron production landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of more accurate and well-founded restoration and maintenance of historical hedges and hedge banks in The Netherlands more research is needed on their regional typology and maintenance systems. The paper describes a regional inventory in the area south of Nijmegen in which more than three hundred relics of hedges and hedge banks were closely examined and contextualized. The project showed that the area traditionally did not show any traces of hedge laying. However, there were abundant relics of various traditional hedge wreathing systems. This new knowledge has important implications for future hedge management in the area and contradicts recent tendencies to copy English hedge laying techniques in Dutch regions where this technique has never been applied in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

M. Oosterbosch's additional calendar of documents belonging to the series 'Appeals from Holland' (Brussels, General Archives of the Realm, Collection Great Council of Mechlin) refers to hitherto unknown documents which may encourage fresh thematic research and case-studies on conflicts and litigation which originated mostly from Holland and Zeeland (from the 1460s until the 1580s), and to a lesser extent from Utrecht and (also during later periods) from Gelderland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]