De Kluis village museum, Eext
Village museum in the former communal freezer of Eext, with objects, photos and stories from the village and the surrounding area, from prehistory to the twentieth century.
The building is itself a piece of village history. The communal freezer was built in 1958 and had 120 freezer lockers in which vegetables and meat were stored. When people got their own chest freezers at home around 1970, it fell out of use. Now the museum shows the history of Eext and the villages around it.
Much of what is on display comes from the people of Eext themselves: household objects, farm tools, clothing, documents and photos. There are displays of businesses that have disappeared, such as a wheelwright's, a bakery, a smithy and a barber's. In the period room, a living room from the early twentieth century has been recreated, with an old ceiling and a wall of cupboards with a box bed.
At the heart of the exhibition is a scale model of Eext in 1754. According to the museum, it shows the village as the painter Egbert van Drielst (1745-1818) found it when he came to paint there; he first visited Eext in 1772. A few stretches of the hedge that ran around the village survive, as do several farmhouses and a sheepfold from that time.
Display cases hold archaeological finds from around Eext and from the banks of the Hunze, including from the Iron Age and the Roman period.
The museum is largely run by volunteers from the village. They look after the collection, give guided tours and organise temporary exhibitions, talks, workshops and walks through Eext. Through the project “Op stap met Geessie en Geert”, pupils aged around eight to ten at schools in the municipality of Aa en Hunze get to know the heritage on their own doorstep.
De Kluis also created the “Eext vroeger en nu” (Eext then and now) routes: a 25-kilometre cycle ride and a 3-kilometre walk in and around the village, with points of interest and old photos. They are on sale at the museum for a small charge.
Eext is on the Hondsrug ridge near Gieten, north-east of Rolde. Opening times and activities are on dorpsmuseumdekluiseext.nl.
