Every design for Haaksbergen

Haaksbergen is known for its brook, the Buurserbeek, and for the heritage railway of the Museum Buurtspoorweg. It lies in the south of Twente, on the German border, a short ride from Enschede and Hengelo, and calls itself the Star of Twente.

There is a warmth in the way people here talk about the village. A wooden church stood here around the year one thousand, the forerunner of the Sint-Pancratiuskerk, and the first written record of Haaksbergen dates from the twelfth century. The Buurserbeek once ran right through the middle, until it was diverted and linked to the Schipbeek, opening a waterway to the Hanseatic towns of Deventer, Zwolle and Zutphen. In the eighteenth century came the De Korenbloem corn mill; from the nineteenth century, textiles, and at its peak four in five working people in Haaksbergen were in the trade. The Textielmonument keeps that era in view. Today Buurse and St. Isidorushoeve belong to the same municipality, and south of the village the estate of Lankheet uses reed beds to clean the water of the brook.

On the map, the Buurserbeek now curves south of the village it once ran straight through, with De Buurser Pot waiting at its jetty.