How Vlieland lost its western village — the story of 1736

A second village, on the western tip

West-Vlieland, called Westeynde in old records, lay on the western end of the island. It was not the little brother of Oost-Vlieland — it was the main village. The settlement was already recorded in a tax register from 1395, with a church and a parish priest who rented the rectory from that same church.

Around 1650, according to the VVV, there were more than 400 houses. Pilots and whaling captains had their homes there. There was a mill, a spinning house, a poorhouse, its own fishing fleet, and its own brewery. The town hall tower served as a beacon for ships entering the Vlie. In 1590, the village received its own coat of arms from Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, bearing a tree — on an island that had barely any trees at the time.

Why it went wrong

The demise probably did not begin on Vlieland itself, but on Texel. When a sand dyke was constructed there in 1630 between Texel and Eierland, the pattern of channels on the seabed changed. The current along the western tip of Vlieland grew stronger. What the sea did after that, it did slowly: every year a stretch of beach, every decade a row of houses.

People fought back. Small dykes were built, houses were dismantled and rebuilt further along, possessions were moved. It did not help. The sea was in no hurry, and the village had no answer.

The end

By 1736, only two houses remained standing. That year is therefore generally regarded as the end of West-Vlieland, although in truth nothing was left of a community by then. The residents had departed for Oost-Vlieland and Texel.

What remained of the village ended up submerged. In 1857, there was an estimated fifteen fathoms of water at that spot — around twenty-seven metres. Fishermen still regularly hauled up building stones in their nets. On current charts, the water depth there is around ten metres.

What you see of it now

Nothing. That is precisely what is unsettling about this story: the village that was the island's most important has no ruins, no burial mound, no sign. Only a gable stone bearing the old coat of arms, and a name that can still be found on old maps.

When you walk across the Vliehors today, you are not walking across West-Vlieland — that lay further west, in what is now open water. The island has shifted along since then. Vlieland has no fixed place; it only has a name that has stayed in the same spot.