Kasteel Nuwendoorn near Krabbendam: free to visit, no dogs

A ruin in a meadow, four kilometres inland from the dunes. In OpenStreetMap it stands as historic=ruins, way 108744174, with 't Huis te Nuwedore as a second name and the Dutch Wikipedia article attached to it. The owner and manager is Stichting Monumentenbezit, a Dutch foundation that owns and maintains listed monuments.

Can you simply walk in?

Yes, and it costs nothing. The site of the ruin itself says the monument is “free to visit daily from April up to and including the autumn half term of 2026”. On which date that autumn half term ends it does not say, and we have not been able to establish that elsewhere either. The autumn half term is the Dutch school holiday at the end of October, and the exact week differs by region.

A few times a year there are events, and for those you do pay admission. You buy the ticket at the gate, in cash or by card. On 5 September 2026 there was not a single event in the diary on nuwendoorn.nl.

What stands on the site now?

No castle. You see partly rebuilt walls of modern material, gabions filled with stones, and on the spot of the main tower a steel tower by the architect Paul van Vliet, meant to be stood on as a lookout. How high that tower is, and whether you are allowed up it at the moment, we have not been able to establish.

The foundations were consolidated in the sixties, from 2006 the ruin was tackled again, and since May 2023 the site has been open to the public once more, over a new access bridge.

The Wikipedia article that OpenStreetMap attaches to it mentions a residential tower of 11 by 11 metres and a main castle of 32 by 32 metres. Those measurements do not appear on the owner’s own site, so we pass them on with the source attached and not as a measurement of our own.

Can the dog come along?

No. “Honden zijn helaas niet toegestaan”, dogs are unfortunately not allowed, is what nuwendoorn.nl says in so many words. That is the exception in this area: in the Schoorlse Duinen (the Schoorl dunes) and on the beaches next door the dog may come along, under rules that differ by season. Here he does not get in. Checked on 5 September 2026.

Where can you park?

This is where the information stops. The only sentence the owner writes about it is that “a limited number of parking spaces” is available during events. What applies on an ordinary day, how many spaces there are and where they lie is written nowhere, and we have not been able to establish it.

What is certain: this is the municipality of Schagen and not the municipality of Bergen. The paid parking zones of Bergen apply only in Bergen, Schoorl, Bergen aan Zee, Egmond aan Zee and Hargen aan Zee, so the tariff of 2.45 euros per hour that you pay in Schoorl does not apply here. Whether something else applies here we do not know.

The owner writes that the site is easy to reach on foot and by bike, and that it is accessible for people with reduced mobility. Which bus runs there and where the nearest stop lies we have not checked.

What is the address?

Burchtweg, 1744 JE Sint Maarten. The three sources do not agree on the rest: the homepage of the ruin gives Burchtweg 3, the footer leaves the house number out, and the national listed buildings register puts monument number 33622 at “Bij Burchtweg 9 A”. The place name differs as well, because the Wikipedia article keeps to Krabbendam and the owner to Sint Maarten. Both villages lie in the municipality of Schagen. Navigate on the Burchtweg and not on the house number.

How old is the castle?

Building started shortly after 1282, commissioned by count Floris V. It was a dwangburcht, a castle built to hold a conquered population down, one of a series along the Westfriese Omringdijk (the ring dyke around West Friesland), with counterparts in Medemblik, Alkmaar and Wijdenes. According to the owner it mainly guarded the waterways.

After the murder of Floris V in 1296 the West Frisians destroyed the castle, according to the owner before the building was even completely finished. After that it was rebuilt. After 1367 it is not named in any archive document again, and it was probably flooded by the sea around 1370.

In 1948 someone came upon the kloostermoppen, the oversized medieval bricks, by chance. A good ten years later the ruin lay completely exposed. Who exactly made that find the sources tell differently: the owner writes about a farmer, the Wikipedia article names amateur archaeologists. We leave the name out.

How far is it from Schoorl?

Four point zero kilometres as the crow flies from the village centre of Schoorl, in a north-north-easterly direction. From the Klimduin it is 4.1 kilometres, from the Catrijper Nok 3.4 kilometres and from the Palendorp near Petten 5.3 kilometres. Those are straight lines across the map, calculated from the coordinates, and not cycling or walking distances. How long the route is by road we have not measured.

For this you leave the dunes. Where the rest of this guide is about sand, this lies in the polder behind them, the flat reclaimed farmland that starts where the dunes stop. It is rural Noord-Holland, the province north of Amsterdam, with Alkmaar as the nearest city.

Is it busy?

Monumentenbezit does not publish visitor numbers, and we do not have them either.

We do know how often it is searched for: 30 times a month on the name of this castle, measured on 5 September 2026. The Klimduin gets 6,600 and the Palendorp near Petten 2,400. So this is not a place where coaches drop people off. It is a meadow with a ruin in it, where according to the owner you can play, rest and picnic.