The Lost Harbour of Biezelinge

Walking across the Marktplein in Biezelinge today, you feel mostly quiet. From the steps towards the Oude Dijk, you look out over a playground. With a little imagination, the outlines of an old harbour can be recognised here: where grass now grows, there was once a quay. An etching from 1650 shows what it looked like back then.

Biezelinge developed on the edge of a large creek that once ran from north to south through South Beveland. In the eleventh century this was dammed. Remains of that dam still lie beneath the Hoofdstraat and the Marktplein. This makes Biezelinge one of the oldest villages in South Beveland.

For a long time the harbour was connected to the Western Scheldt via a natural waterway. The Zwarte Weel is a remnant of this. From the seventeenth century onwards the harbour slowly silted up; in 1717 a dam was built. Until then, Biezelinge was a lively trading place for agricultural products, cloth, wine and salt.