Museum visits · Uithuizen · Netherlands
The Menkemaborg in Uithuizen and the churches of the Ommeland
the Alberda family's country house within its moats, furnished as in the eighteenth century, with the Baroque garden and the maze, and along the road from Groningen the brick churches with painted vaults and seventeenth century organs
In the Ommeland, the flat countryside around Groningen, the lords lived in borgs: brick houses enclosed by a moat, in the middle of the fields. Few are left, and the Menkemaborg in Uithuizen, some twenty kilometres from Groningen towards the Wadden coast, is the one that still looks lived in. It began in the fourteenth century as a stone house; in 1682 it was bought by Mello Alberda, and his son Unico Allard, who married Everdina Cornera van Berum in 1701, rebuilt it as it is today, Baroque and symmetrical, with the architect Allert Meijer. The Alberdas lived there until 1902, and in 1921 the heirs gave it to the Groninger Museum. Inside there are the carved wooden fireplaces, the yellow silk bed, the kitchen with its copper pans and the rooms furnished as if the owners were about to come back; outside, the garden redesigned as it was around 1705, with box parterres, the hedge sundial and the maze with the old plane tree in the middle. The road from Groningen passes through the villages of the Ommeland's red brick Romanesque and Gothic churches: Garmerwolde, with its painted vaults, Middelstum, Zeerijp, with its organ of 1651, and in Uithuizen the church with the organ by Arp Schnitger. In January and February the borg is closed.
Getting there
- The borg's car park is reached from the Moeshornweg, immediately on the right: the first part is for coaches, the second has spaces for cars. Whether a motorhome can park with the coaches the borg does not say
- From the car park you walk in along the sandy path around the outer moat; bicycles are left before the first bridge, and the ticket office is in the little house just after it, on the right
- For the churches the easiest route from Groningen is Garmerwolde, Middelstum, Zeerijp and Uithuizen: Garmerwolde and Zeerijp are along the N360, the road to Delfzijl
Practical information
The borg is visited on your own, with or without the audio guide; tickets are bought at the door and there is no booking.
Duration two or three hours for the borg and the garden; a whole day with three or four churches along the road, and in winter, when fewer churches are open, half a day
Price 11.50 euros, from 6 to 17 years 3.50; the garden only 7.50
When to go from March to December
Suitable for those who love period houses and gardens, and children with the young people's audio guide; dogs on a lead are allowed in the garden and on the moat path. Photography is not allowed inside the house. A wheelchair can be booked by phone
Booking not needed
Contacts
Where it is
Uithuizen · Groninga
Notes
- Opening hours: from March to September Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, from October to December until 16:00; also open on Easter Monday and Whit Monday; on 25 and 26 December from 12:00 to 16:00; closed in January and February. On Monday it is closed. For 31 December the borg says nothing
- Prices: the borg with the garden 11.50 euros, from 6 to 17 years 3.50, up to 5 years free; the garden only 7.50 euros and 3.50; the audio guide 2 euros, the young people's one 1. The page does not give the year of the price list
- At Christmas, in 2025, there was the big illuminated tree on the forecourt, the mistletoe over the door, the decorated rooms and the table laid in the dining room, with a concert of carols and organ on the 25th and one of seventeenth and eighteenth century music on the 26th. The 2026 programme comes out at the end of November
- The 2026 exhibition, until 31 December, tells of the royal visits: in 1873 William III had lunch at the borg with Gerhard Alberda van Menkema, in 1929 Queen Wilhelmina signed the visitors' book with Prince Hendrik and Princess Juliana
- In winter the garden has its hedges clipped, which shows off the design; in summer the rose tunnel flowers, in July
- The 't Schathoes restaurant is in the borg's old farmhouse, next to the car park, and is closed on Monday; whether its hours change in winter it does not say
- Garmerwolde, six kilometres from Groningen, is open every day of the year from 10:00 to 17:00: it is the choir of a thirteenth century church, with a detached bell tower; the nave was demolished in 1859 and its outline is marked in the churchyard with shells. The vaults were painted at the beginning of the sixteenth century with the life of Mary and the Passion
- Middelstum, the church of St Hippolytus, from November to March opens only on Saturday and Sunday in fine weather, when the OPEN sign is on the door; from April to October every day from 10:00 to 17:00
- Zeerijp is open every day from 10:00 to 16:00: a fourteenth century cruciform church, between Romanesque and Gothic, with walls and vaults painted as fake brickwork, dark red with white joints. The organ is by Theodorus Faber, of 1651, with stars that turn on the front and the nightingale stop
- Uithuizen, less than a kilometre from the borg, has in the Jacobikerk one of the best-preserved organs by Arp Schnitger, of 1700, with the case by Allert Meijer and the carvings by Jan de Rijk, the same as at the borg. But the church is open only from Easter to the second Saturday of October: in winter it is closed, and whether the key is given out of season too is not stated
- The churches belong to the foundation for the old churches of Groningen, which publishes the opening hours of each one on the church's page; where a church is closed there is often an address in the village where you can ask for the key
- The winter alternative is the Fraeylemaborg in Slochteren, sixteen kilometres east of Groningen, which stays open in January too: Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 to 17:00, Saturday and Sunday from 13:00, on 25 and 26 December from 13:00 to 17:00, closed on 1 January. With the 2026 price list the borg costs 10 euros, children from 6 to 12 years 4.50, and the park around it is free all year
Photo: Ben Bender, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Baykedevries, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: 8 oktober, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Michielverbeek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Hardscarf, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Gouwenaar, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
