Every design for Hoogeveen

Hoogeveen was founded by investors from Leiden who wanted their peat cutters to settle for good on the high bogs of southern Drenthe, and the land still carries the pattern of that work. A main canal, the Hoogeveense Vaart, carried the dug peat to Meppel, while narrower side canals branched off at right angles, close enough together for a labourer to wheel a barrow of turf between them. As those bogs were worked out, the open ground turned to farmland and cattle, and the railway between Meppel and Groningen brought factories for cheese, tins and frozen food.

There is a quiet pride here about the war years. Hoogeveen became a centre of resistance soon after the occupation began: people in hiding found shelter in the town and the surrounding countryside, and underground newspapers were passed on from here. The Verzetsmonument keeps those names close, and the Steenbergerbult carries the name of Steenbergen, whose farmers once held the ground the town was built on.

The Blikfabriek Hoogeveen Museum, where the tin works that employed so many families is remembered, explains in one building why this town of canals and factories is worth putting on a shirt.