Elspeet, Garderen, Staverden

For centuries, the sound of silence and the sweet smell of tranquillity have characterised the Veluwe. Perhaps that is the reason for your visit, but even in the late 19th century, the Veluwe beckoned. We delve into the lives of two remarkable ladies who exchanged the West for the Veluwe in the late 19th century: Blanche Douglas Hamilton and Helene Kröller-Müller.

We cycle through the Ermelose Heide and the Speulder- en Sprielderbos. The landscape has changed with time but exudes history. Everything you cycle past today was there then too: the estates, the sheep pens, the humble-making nature and even the catering establishments included in the route. Perhaps Blanche or Helene once drank a cup of tea here.

Built in 1876, the railway from Amersfoort to Zutphen was the second railway line in the Netherlands and made the Veluwe accessible to many. The villages of Nunspeet and Elspeet attracted many artists. The paint tube had just been invented so painting on location became incredibly popular. Between 1890 and 1950, some 200 visual artists lived temporarily in this region. Some of them often stayed for longer periods at Herberg de Zwaan in Elspeet.

Among them were only two women. One of them was Blanche Douglas Hamilton, a 40-year-old unmarried English lady, who settled permanently in the village. How she ended up in Elspeet has never been ascertained but she got on very well with the villagers who mostly did not interfere with the newcomers.
She was a free-spirited lady who was certainly not attached to Elspeet as evidenced by the drawings made in Jerusalem, Carnac and Corsica, among other places. People had difficulty pronouncing her name and conveniently called her 'the Miss'. Miss Hamilton also drew a lot in nature. Many of her drawings have Elspeet as their subject: Elspeet farms with sheep pens and flocks of sheep. We also encounter these while cycling today, and both the moors and the flocks of sheep still evoke a sense of wonder.

A large number of Miss Hamilton's works are owned by Teylers Museum in Haarlem.

Besides the artists, there was another group that went to the Veluwe: wealthy people from the West, made rich by the industrial revolution, among others, yearned for space and fresh air at the end of the 19th century and found it in the Veluwe. The royal family's residence, Crown Estate Het Loo, had a pull effect. Hunting houses were built and estates refurbished. At this time, hunting was the pastime for industrialists and nobility.

The Kröller-Müller couple from The Hague made a fortune thanks to the Netherlands' neutrality policy in World War I and bought vast tracts of land a little to the east, intended for showing off and hunting.

Helene Kröller-Müller additionally had the dream of connecting art and nature. As the daughter of a German industrialist, she only came into contact with art when she lived a jet-set life in The Hague with her husband Anton and their four children. She met the well-known painter and art critic H.P. Bremmer and, thanks to her fortune and his lessons, especially in modern art, a huge art collection developed, including many works by Vincent van Gogh, a painter no one believed in at the time.

In 1911, Helene fell seriously ill. Faced with her own mortality, she decided to house her art collection in a museum. The recession made this an arduous process but Helene persevered anyway. In 1938, the Kröller-Müller museum opened in Otterlo. Helene died a year later.

For Blanche and Helene, the Veluwe was a place where they could each connect art to nature in their own way. Now, a hundred years later, we seem to look through their eyes and feel the same wonderment for this unique landscape. The Veluwe was, is-and remains-a breeding ground for creativity and dreams that can come true.

Photo Helene Kröller-Müller : Photo archive Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
Photo Blanche Douglas Hamilton: SNWV Nunspeet- Collectie Noord-Veluws Museum Nunspeet

This premium cycling route was compiled by our editor: Yvonne Vlaskamp