Vaassen (;

Low German : : : : : (70,000) (30,000) (8,000) , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Germanic , fam3 = West Germanic , fam4 = North Sea Germanic , ancestor = Old Saxon , ancestor2 = Middle ...

: ''Vaossen'') is one of four villages in the Dutch municipality of Epe. Vaassen is situated between

Apeldoorn Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. Th ...

and

Zwolle Zwolle () is a city and municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Overijssel and the province's second-largest municipality after Enschede with a population of 130,592 as of 1 December 2021. Zwolle is on ...

, on the eastern edge of the Veluwe in the province of

Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...

. Vaassen was an independent municipality up to 1 January 1818, when it merged with Epe.

History

The earliest signs of residents in this area are the burial mounds and "Celtic Fields" (square fields surrounded by small earthen walls, dating from the Iron Age) northwest of Vaassen in the Veluwe, between the Elburgerweg and Gortelseweg. There is a large complex (about 76 acres) of these fields in Vaassen, around Gortelseweg. The German inhabitants were farmers and lived there during the Roman era. They inhabited wooden huts and lived from agriculture, livestock, cultivation of herbs, and hunting deer and boar. The town was mentioned for the first time in a certificate from the Codex Laureshamnensis of the monastery of Lorschin in the year 891 or 892, when someone called Brunhilde gave a farmhouse and the church to Lorsch. The name Vaassen derives from "Fasna", an old word for a specific rough type of grass. From 2 September 1887 up to 8 October 1950 there was a railway station in Vaassen. The station was part of the so-called Baron line between

and

. In 1950 the station was closed because the line was discontinued. The former railway station is still in existence, but is now used as a dwelling. Vaassen is characterized by a centuries-long coexistence of Protestant and Roman Catholic populations. In the 1950s, groups of

Moluccans Moluccans are the Austronesian-speaking and Papuan-speaking ethnic groups indigenous to the Maluku Islands (also called the Moluccas), Indonesia. The region was historically known as the Spice Islands, and today consists of two Indonesian provi ...

were housed in Vaassen. Berkenoord Camp was used for housing. On 14 October 1976, friction with the government regarding housing led to the evacuation of the Moluccans from this dwelling place. Today there is still a considerable Moluccan community in Vaassen.

Architecture

Vaassen's most remarkable historical building is the 16th century Cannenburgh Castle, once home to the knight Maarten van Rossum.

Neighborhoods in Vaassen

Berkenoord, Berkenoord II, The Oosterhof, Heggerenk, Oranjebuurt, Transvaalbuurt, Vogelbuurt, Industriewijk, Vulcanusbuurt and Vossenhoek.

Townships of Vaassen

De Hegge, De Jonas, Geerstraat, Hafkamp, Kortenbroek, 't Laar, Niersen, Vaassense Broek and De Uulenberg.

Sightseeing

* Daams' Mill. An 8-sail wind mill with a corn mill function, restored in 1989. To ensure adequate wind for the mill, and also the development of the center of Vaassen, the mill was raised by 4.9 meters by mid-2012. The raising had to be done because of the so-called wind rights. * Cannenburgh Castle. * Cannenburger Mill, a water mill.

References

External links

*
Site of the town of Vaassen
{{Authority control Populated places in Gelderland Former municipalities of Gelderland Epe