Every design for De Meern

De Meern lies along the line of a vanished branch of the Rhine, the river that once marked the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, just west of Utrecht's inner city. The Roman army built a walled camp on its bank in the first century, long before any village stood here.

What makes De Meern unique is what the river clay kept. In 1997, while ground was being prepared for new housing, a complete Roman ship was found at the bottom of the old riverbed. It now lies in Castellum Hoge Woerd, a rebuilt fort on the site of the real one, among the many finds the soil has given up; the Romeinse wachttoren adds another echo of that frontier. The village itself came much later: around 1200 farmers built a dike called the Meern, a bridge gave access to it, and a chapel near the bridge grew into a church, today's Marekerk. Since 2001 De Meern has been part of the municipality of Utrecht, set between the A12 and the Leidse Rijn canal, with Kasteel Nijevelt and the Máximapark nearby.

Turn off the A12 at the De Meern exit and you are back among the parks and the old dike road: home, with Roman history underfoot.