Meppel Nu

· 09 Oct 2020

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MEPPEL in times gone by: Panorama from the tower

#MEPPELPANORAMA 😍 Meppel (Drents: Möppelt) is a town and municipality in the south-west Netherlands, in the province of Drenthe. On 1 August 2020, the municipality had 34,125 inhabitants (source: CBS), of which more than 28,000 live in the city of Meppel itself. The municipal area is 58 km². Meppel is therefore the smallest municipality in Drenthe. #GESCHIEDENIS 😍 Meppel was mentioned in a charter in 1141, but at that time it was nothing more than a group of farms. In 1422, Meppel was separated from Kolderveen as an independent church game and then one was allowed to build a church. [3] #Mariakerk is still there, although a lot has changed over the centuries. The place was no more than a village at the time. Meppel flourished in the 16th century because of the peat excavations in the northern Netherlands; the city was an important transit port due to the connection with the Drentsche Hoofdvaart and Hoogeveense Vaart on one side and the Meppelerdiep on the other. Via the Meppelerdiep the Zwartsluis the Zuiderzee can be reached. Along this road, the peat was exported from all over Drenthe to the west of the country.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, many boaters settled in the village, which had been granted city rights by the drost of Drenthe in 1644 and now had more than a thousand inhabitants. In 1809, Meppel received city rights from Louis Napoleon again. On November 5, 1815, Meppel received its own city regulations from King William I. [4]

The waters that pass through the centre of Meppel are called canals. Partly because of the names #Heerengracht , #Keizersgracht and #Prinsengracht ,the city is sometimes called the Mokum of the North. For other reasons, Meppel is compared to Amsterdam. For centuries there have been links between the two cities and the Jewish community was abundantly represented in Meppel before the Second World War. Street names like Synagogue Street remind of that time. The above canals are all along the old route of the Hoogeveense Vaart and the Beilerstroom through the centre of Meppel. In the twentieth century, some canals were muted that ran right through the centre of the city. Some drawbridges have also been replaced by fixed bridges. Since then it has become impossible to enter Drenthe through Meppel, partly because of the narrowing of the Hoogeveense Vaart in 2005 at the level of the Oosterboer. In 2008, part of the Gasgracht, up to the Prinsenplein in the city centre, was dug open again. At the height of the old “Tipbrug” a folding bridge over the Gasgracht was built. This bridge is built after the Tipbrug and is called “Prinsenbrug”. There are plans to re-open more canals.

During World War II, almost all Jewish inhabitants of Meppel were transported by the German occupying forces to the concentration camps and died there. Of the 250 Meppeli Jews, 232 were killed and only 18 returned.

In 2007, Meppel became a Millennium Municipality.