Asten
Encyclopedia
Asten is a municipality
and a town in the southern Netherlands
.
It is home to the Royal Eijsbouts bell foundry
and also a carillon
museum.
The village has a castle dating back to the 12th century, to the south of the current village. which also gave its name to the village: "Aa-Stein", or "stone building on the river Aa". A second stone-built fortified building was suspected to the north, at the site of the current Slotweg ("castle road"), and some stone fragments have been excavated, although no conclusive evidence has been produced of a fortified building here. The village was pillaged and burnt twice in the 17th century, by Austrian and Swedish army troops.
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
and a town in the southern Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
It is home to the Royal Eijsbouts bell foundry
Royal Eijsbouts bell foundry
Royal Eijsbouts is a bell foundry located in Asten, Netherlands.The workshop was founded in 1872 by Bonaventura Eijsbouts as a "factory for tower clocks." In 1893 Eijsbouts was joined by his 15 year old son, Johan, and the workshop expanded to begin supplying striking and swinging bells, which...
and also a carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
museum.
History
Asten has a rich history going back to the Roman occupation of Batavia. In the swamp of the village's national park 'De Peel' was found an ancient Roman centurion helmet. There were also silhouets of Hunter-Gatherer and Agriculture societies found in the area.The village has a castle dating back to the 12th century, to the south of the current village. which also gave its name to the village: "Aa-Stein", or "stone building on the river Aa". A second stone-built fortified building was suspected to the north, at the site of the current Slotweg ("castle road"), and some stone fragments have been excavated, although no conclusive evidence has been produced of a fortified building here. The village was pillaged and burnt twice in the 17th century, by Austrian and Swedish army troops.
Famous people from Asten
- Frits de Bruin, Second World War resistanceResistance during World War IIResistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
hero, butchered by the Germans in 1944 - Vivian Jansen, 5th in the Miss Universe competition in 1992
- NanceNancy CoolenNancy Anna Francina Coolen, known as Nance is a Dutch TV host who was previously the lead-singer of a Eurodance group called Twenty 4 Seven....
, TV host and former Twenty 4 SevenTwenty 4 SevenTwenty 4 Seven is a Eurodance act, created by Dutch record producer Ruud van Rijen in 1989. Active sporadically ever since, the act has featured nine different vocalists, has performed across Europe and Africa, and as of 2010 is fronted by Li Ann and Stacey "Stay-C" Paton.One of the earliest...
vocalist (born)