HISTORY OF PRINS HENDRIK TEXEL
The exciting story of Hotel and Bungalow Park Prins Hendrik starts in 1876. With the building of a dam the rough Wadden Sea inlet which, like an ugly tear meanders between the old land of Texel and the polders of Eierland en Eendracht disappears. Polder Het Noorden (The North) is a given. The impolderers heart yearningly look forward to all the agricultural possibilities lying ahead. Things however develop differently. The reclaimed land turns out to be of very bad quality. The fertile land of Eierland and De Eendracht provided good business for the agrarians. The men of the Waterboard were determined to make exploitation of the land of Het Noorden just as successful. The impolderers however miss one very important aspect regarding this reclaimed land and that of the successful neighbouring polders: the land of Het Noorden turns out to be of very poor quality.
The exploiters are not happy at all and only a few sheep farmers try their luck on the salty drift-sand. In the meantime however Het Noorden evolves into one of the most important bird breeding and migration area’s in Western Europe at that time. The famous Dutch conservationist Jac. P. Thijsse extensively describes the abundance of this bird paradise in ‘The Intimate Life of Birds (1906).
Even today nature lovers’ eyes lighten up when they start talking about Het Noorden , at the Nort-Eastern side of Texel, Het Noorden with Utopia, The Schorren and the area surrounding The Bol, the mill still is one huge melting pot of common terns, arctic terns, little terns, black-headed gulls, northern lapwings, common redshanks, Eurasian oystercatchers , Western marsh harriers and Eurasian spoonbills.
How did hotel Prins Hendrik come about?
This is the responsibility of one headstrong man from the Wieringerwaard; Floris Dekker. He was famous for for his strange initiatives and ideas. Guest house and Café Prins Hendrik (the present Prins Hendrik) was his best idea ever. His mooring jetty for ships, with which he hoped to attract more clientele for his establishment was by far his worst idea. The Wadden Sea destroyed it over and over again. The hotel remained. Floris was looking for a more catchy name. Thus it became Prins Hendrik, named after the spouse of former queen Wilhelmina, who, according to Dekker had slept in his hotel.
Nobody knows whether or not this story is true. What several elderly people dìd however confirm in the nineties:
At the beginning of the early nineteenth century Prince Hendrik could be most definitely be found in the north of Texel together with other peers, hunting sandpipers and duck. We love the thought of him possibly having enjoyed a good meal and a stiff drink. We gladly pass on this lively phantasy. Over the times Guest House and Café Dekker of yonder years has been renovated, changed, improved. And, from a small hotel with a camping it has grown into a majestic, delightful hotel with a beautiful bungalow park.
