Ewsum

Ewsum stands in the municipality of Middelstum in the Netherlands and developed as a local noble manor in the medieval period. A supposed predecessor called De Oert is mentioned in a forged charter as having been destroyed around 1250, and a later forged text dated 1278 claims jonker Ewe of De Oert built a new manor named Ewesheim, the name that later became Ewsum. The borg itself is first securely recorded in 1371; a 1353 charter referring to an earlier castle has been identified as forged.

In the fifteenth century Onno van Ewsum enlarged and strengthened the place, adding a protective wall in the water, a gatehouse, a corner tower and, by 1472, a heavy gun tower or keep. The site suffered heavy damage in 1499 during the Guelders Wars when members of the Van Ewsum family opposed the city of Groningen. Political shifts in the early sixteenth century altered the family’s residence and allegiances, and after Wigbold van Ewsum’s death in 1528 the house appears to have been occupied by stewards rather than the family itself.

Ownership and use changed repeatedly between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Johan van Ewsum carried out interior work about 1561; the property passed by auction to Caspar van Ewsum in 1601, was given to Luirdt baron Ripperda in 1610, and later belonged for a time to Abel Coenders and Evert Lewe. From 1648 Johan Lewe undertook major rebuilding around 1649 that transformed the fortified residence into a country house, and parts of the complex were taken down shortly before 1657 when a western service building was erected.

Inventories around 1800 show the estate retained extensive lands but also carried debts. Repairs about 1805 by Egbert and Edzard Jacob made the property habitable again. Hendrik Willem Wierda acquired Ewsum in 1856 and in 1863 ordered the demolition of the principal house and the western service building, leaving only the medieval keep and the eastern service house. During that work five heraldic stone shields from the tower façade were removed and refitted on Ekenstein, a stone foundation possibly belonging to an earlier tower was uncovered, and many movable objects were transferred to the Groninger Museum.

In the twentieth century Siemon Ludolf Vinhuizen bought the grounds in 1916 and felled a linden tree in 1917. In 1932 architect Sietze Albert Veenstra constructed a large barn in the Amsterdam School style directly behind the surviving eastern service building. Staatsbosbeheer created a village forest between 1984 and 1994 and acquired the borg and surrounding lands in 1993; the keep received restoration in 1991 and the moats were dredged in 1994. Archaeological investigations in 1998 uncovered foundation rubble of the former western service building and a feature that may relate to an earlier predecessor. During the 1990s and 2000s the remaining service building and its grounds were restored and adapted for social and work projects; a tea-room opened in the restored coach house in 2006 and annual summer markets have been held on the borgterrein since 2003. In 2006 the terrain was transferred for a nominal sum to the Stichting Beheer Borgterrein Ewsum, which holds the site under lease from Staatsbosbeheer.