Fraeylemaborg Slochteren

The late afternoon sun pays homage to this castle, known in this northernmost province of Groningen as a ‘borg’. Until the early Seventies it was home to Louise Thomassen a Thuessink van der Hoop van Slochteren, scion of an old patrician family. But the upkeep of this charming with its moat and gardens became too costly. Now Fraeylemaborg is a museum, a small monument to upper class living. There is a small land a large hall, and yellow, red and blue rooms. Around the hearth in winter the family played games and read books. When the days grew longer the children would play in the romantic English landscaped garden where storks came to hatch their eggs. All in the quiet municipality of Slochteren, that in 1959 went on to become a household name in the Netherlands as the symbol of the country’s huge, newly- discovered natural gas reserves.