Every design for Hardenberg

The statue of Aaltje Kraak stands in Hardenberg as a reminder of the night of 8 May 1708, when an old woman's fire, never fully explained, swept through a town of a hundred wooden houses and left almost nothing standing. A national collection paid for the rebuilding, this time in stone.

The town stirs a particular pride, the kind that comes from a long and stubborn history. Hardenberg was given city rights in 1362, when the people of nearby Nijenstede had already moved within the walls of the bishop's castle for safety, and the old graveyard of Nijenstede, still there on the Stationsstraat, ranks among the oldest in the Netherlands. A good part of the population speaks Dutch Low Saxon, and locals have their own name for the place: Harnbarg.

Hardenberg lies on the Vecht, which with Ommen and Dalfsen forms the Vechtdal, close to Drenthe and the German border. Its centre holds the Stephanuskerk, a rebuilt stretch of medieval wall beside it, the museum in 't Stadhuus and the figure of De Klepperman. Where the castle once rose, the Höftekerk now stands.