Wad and Clay, the Hoogeland

Warffum borders the wadden coastal area that has Unesco World Heritage Site status. South of the village there is a centuries old mounded landscape, north there are polders that border the Wadden Sea. The landscape is wild and open. Expansive farmland and pasture is broken up by farms and high villages. Around 2,500 years ago, the first permanent inhabitants settled in this area. They created mounds to protect themselves against the water. The mounds formed the basis for the later dykes that were often built by the monasteries. After the dykes were built, the land was cultivated. This was followed by creating polders from alluvial soil along the wadden coast, creating vast lands with fertile sea clay.

Read the landscape

History can be detected all over this landscape. The villages have their own character with a large number of small houses close together. There is no market square or village green. Outside you can still recognise the oldest dykes. The course of ditches and canals points to the time the land was cultivated.

Archaeology

Locks mark the places where surplus water used to discharged into the sea. Open-air museum Het Hoogeland has a collection of archeological objects that reflects the history of human habitation of this part of the Netherlands.