Castle Brederode

Castle Brederode is the ruin of a 13th-century castle in Santpoort-Zuid (Velsen, Noord-Holland), built in the second half of the 1200s by the lords of Brederode on the edge of the dunes near Haarlem. During the Hook and Cod wars it was besieged and torn down in 1351, rebuilt, and wrecked again in 1426. In 1573, after the Siege of Haarlem, Spanish troops burned it, and drifting dune sand slowly buried what was left. In the 19th century it became one of the first ruins in the Netherlands restored by the state. Today the walls stand in a park and you can climb the keep for a view over the dunes.