The Stone Dike near Hasselt

A unique phenomenon in the Dutch landscape

The Netherlands consists largely of polders and dikes that protect the Low Netherlands against flooding. A distinction is made between sea dikes, river dikes and inner dikes along lakes and canals. Almost all old dikes were built from locally available soil and raised and widened over the centuries. Where necessary, slope and soil protection was applied, for which various materials were used over the centuries.

View of the Stone dike and of the windmill of Hasselt

View of the Stone Dike and of the windmill of Hasselt

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In the summer of 2021 I was sitting with my wife in Hasselt on a terrace at the Zwarte Water during a bike ride, drinking a cup of coffee. I hear my name called. It turns out to be an old colleague from Rijkswaterstaat. He tells me that he is going to visit the stone dike. Now I had heard a lot about dikes in my life and seen a lot of them, but I did not know that we also had a stone dike in the Netherlands. So it was quite special, and I thought it would be nice to visit it at some moment.

A few months later my son sends me a message that the Stone Dike will be restored and reinforced in the near future. That is why I went to have a look at the Stone Dike, together with him. It is indeed clearly a stone dike, which is approximately 1.1 kilometres long and protects the hinterland against flooding from the Zwarte Water and the Galgenrak. There is a considerable foreland in front of it, part of which is taken up by the local ice rink.

In the past, there must have been a reason to construct a stone dike here. The map shows that it is indeed located at an outer bend of the Galgenrak, which flows into the Zwarte Water shortly downstream. In the current situation, it is not immediately clear why a stone dike should be located here, so clearly deviating from the usual dikes. In the past, before the Enclosing Dam in the north of the Zuiderzee was closed, the situation was such that a set up from the Zuiderzee could occur here, whereby water from the Zuiderzee was pushed into the Zwarte Water and also into the Galgenrak. This set up was probably such that this special dike construction was necessary to prevent flooding of the hinterland and erosion of the dike.

A little search on Wikipedia shows that this dike had to be maintained by the owners of the lands behind it and that this was the reason that different types of stones were used in the Stone Dike and that the successive pieces differ in shape. It is also reported that there used to be more stone dikes in our country, but that this is the only stone dike that still exists. The Stone Dike was first mentioned in 1558. It is therefore more than 450 years old and has been a national monument since 1975. I also searched the internet to see if there was information about other stone dikes that must have existed, but I was not successful.

It is nice that this special dike can be preserved. It is a unique phenomenon in our landscape.

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