Erve Hofman - Hellendoorn

Hellendoorn may be best known for the adventure park of the same name, but it is originally an agricultural municipality with a small, private community. We see this at Erve Hofman, a former farmhouse now used as a heritage museum. Here we get a good idea of village life in the past.

That village life still exists, including the strong mutual involvement. To give an example: the museum is only open for a few hours three times a week, during afternoons. On each of those afternoons, four, sometimes five volunteers are present. Not only to welcome visitors and provide them with a 'kniepertie' (a unique Hellendoorn wafer), but also to perform old crafts on the spot. Even if no one shows up, they have a great time. As acting chairman Dinand Webbink describes it: 'We are not the most visited museum in the Netherlands, but an empty afternoon is always pleasant. Social contact is very important.'

That demonstration of crafts like weaving, spinning and woodturning is something special. Especially woodturning, with a machine already used in the eighteenth century by one of the ancestors of Johan Beune, the current woodturner on duty. Beune regularly comes all the way from Hengelo for it and makes indestructible chairs, among other things, thanks to special wood-pin connections.