Warfhuizen

Warfhuizen (Gronings: Waarfhoezen) is a village in Groningen, a province in the extreme North of the Netherlands. It is situated in the municipality of the Marne.

Warfhuizen consists of two man-made mounds, called wierden, designed to escape the floodwaters of the Wadden, which flooded the whole region several times a year before dykes had been coed. The smaller mound was originally raised to protect a separate village called Burum. The village church stands on the larger mound.

The Church

The church belongs to the hermitage of Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden, one of the few hermitages in the Netherlands still inhabited by a hermit.

The church, which was first constructed in the 13th century, was replaced by a neo-classical building in 1858. Only the bell survived the ages and is even one of the oldest churchbells in the Netherlands. The building is dedicated to Saint Ludger and Our Lady under the title of "the Enclosed Garden".

The present organ was built in 1910, but was in fact reconstructed from two organs of a much earlier date (17th and 18th century.)