Natuurgebied Landgoed De Krim | Elsendorp

Natural Peel Area De Krim in Elsendorp.

What makes the nature of the De Krim estate unique in the municipality is that it has never been mined. Other parts of the Peel have been restored to their former glory (such as the Klotterpeel) but in De Krim, thanks to its pristine nature, there is even a pingo. The area had several owners until 1920 and was only then established as a small-scale farm. There were three wooden cottages on the middenpeel road from which a farm remains but the vast majority was never farmed. This vast majority consists of wet heath and three fens and the aforementioned pingo, a relic of the last ice age (the Weichselien). In the last ice age there was no ice in Brabant, it was just very cold and very dry and the top layer of soil was always frozen (permafrost). A pingo is a low-lying place where water collects under that layer of frozen soil. In winter, this water freezes and expands. It creates a circular mound. That knoll remained until the end of the Ice Age when the accumulated ice and permafrost melted. Then a circular bowl formed in the ground. Often peat grew in this. During various land consolidation and peel reclamations, pingoes were often literally razed to the ground. Or artificial holes were dug 

In fact, there were three pingoes in the municipality, two of which have been exposed by recent archaeological research as do-it-yourself holes. Only De Krim still boasts a real pingo.Sources:

H. van den Ancker, Het land van Gemert-Bakel in twee aardkundige fietsroutes, 2001, Uitgeverij op lemen voeten, Amsterdam

S. Hoeymakers, The golden village, 1976, Harry Bek and son B.V., Veghel, the Netherlands.

S. Hoeymakers, Houtvesterij de Peel, 1986, Heemkundekring de Kommanderij, Gemert

P.H.M. Thissen, Heideontginning en modernisering: in het bijzonder in drie Brabantse Peelgemeenten 1850-1940, Matrijs Publishers, Utrecht

The website: www.gemert-bakel.nl