Natuurgebied De Groote Slink | Elsendorp

After Enschede businessman Abraham Ledeboer bought 1,200 acres of wasteland in the Peel very cheaply, he pointed this possibility out to the Roelvink brothers, who were Twente bankers. The municipalities sold this land to get money in their coffers. Starting in 1903, Adam and Jan-Berent Roelvink bought up 1050 hectares of land. The Groote Slink and the Bunthorst were purchased in 1907. The reclamation work was carried out by the Dutch Heath Company.

From 1910 to 1917, the Groote Slink estate was laid out by landscape architect Leonard Springer, commissioned by Adam Roelvink. This laid out an estate in English landscape style. The architect used the natural slopes to shape this new landscape.

A villa was built that was once called Groote Slink but today is called Bronlaak. From this villa two lines of sight run in the form of dead straight avenues. One is called the Long Walk and the other the Düsseldorfer Allee. The latter is a copy of the Königsallee in Düsseldorf, then a stately avenue, now a busy shopping street. Both the length of the avenue and the distances between trees are the same as the German example. The trees are native oaks, but there are three Swamp oaks among them.