Bardelaere Museum

The Meetjesland in the north of East-Flanders, Belgium

The Bardelaere Museum

Warning: if for you old and useless junk is synonymous with disorder then this museum is not for you.

The Bardelaere Museum in Lembeke is a private initiative, the result of the perseverance and work of Marc Dauwe, Rosette Van Hecke and Firmin Van Durmen, helped by many volunteers.

Who knows, one or two of these volunteers perhaps later regretted giving away their old junk when they saw the prices being asked for similar objects by antique dealers or on flee markets.

The Bardelaere Museum tries to keep for future generations the tools of more than one hundred trades and jobs. Here you have an exhibition area of more than 1,200 square meters. There are more than 15,000 objects in all. Not so long ago these and similar objects were used everywhere in our Meetjesland.

With all that going for it the Bardelaere Museum no doubt breaks a few records in the world of museums.

Three of the founders.

There are the woods of the fairy tales; there is the weather station, there is a mini shipyard. And the farm house has been transformed in an old fashioned and very cosy pub with a pavement (or sidewalk) café.

There is for instance a pair of smuggler's clogs: the outside was cut with the heels in front so that customs officers followed their tracks in the wrong direction.

And of course there are many farm tools, carts (some drawn by dogs), plows and early agricultural machines.

The oldest chamber pot of the collection is more than 400 years old. There is a cup designed with a special rim so as not to wet the drinker's mustache. And so we could go on for good few pages but you had better come and have a look for yourself. It's open every Sunday afternoon from 2 till 6. Or for groups give them a call on +32 9 377 04 22.

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