Zeerijp (; or ) is a village north of city of

Groningen Groningen ( , ; ; or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen (province), Groningen province in the Netherlands. Dubbed the "capital of the north", Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of ...

. Its most striking building is its brick

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

for the 14th century with detached

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

. Formerly dedicated to

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

, now it is a

Dutch Reformed church The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...

. Also there is a famous organ inside the church, a Faber organ. Because there are so few inhabitants, Zeerijp has no shops, but there is a primary school 'De Wilgenstee' and a cafe. Also, there is a famous mill, 'de Leeuw'. There is also a gold and silver smith, Van Hulsen. Zeerijp's most recently made the headlines when an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

struck the village in January 2007. Earthquakes are extremely rare in the Netherlands; this one, measuring 2.3 on the

Richter magnitude scale The Richter scale (), also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale, is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, and pr ...

, was a result of drilling for

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

History

The village was first mentioned in the 10th or 11th century Ripon as means "sea

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

". Zeerijp was located on the former

Fivel The Fivel was a historical river in the province of Groningen (province), Groningen in the Netherlands. It received its water from peat bogs around Kolham and Slochteren, flowed past , and , and meandered north of Winneweer. The Fivel debouched i ...

estuary which was connected to the sea It is a dike village which developed into a stretched out settlement. The

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

de Leeuw was moved to Zeerijp from in 1865 to replace a 1622 wind mill. It was restored between 1974 and 1977. Zeerijp was home to 508 people in 1840.

Gallery

File:Zeerijp - café Nastrovje.jpg, Village pub File:7613.Fivel.Zeerijp.Jacobskerk.DeGroeve.SprikNust.Church.jpg, View on Zeerijp File:7617 (1).Zeerijp.Kraampje.Pompoen.Verkoop.aanWeg.jpg, Farm in Zeerijp File:Zeerijp - Borgweg 18.jpg, Villa farm from 1908

References

External links

* *
Local information
{{Authority Control Populated places in Groningen (province) Eemsdelta