History
Since the beginning of our era, the old course of the Rhine between Utrecht and Harmelen became increasingly more difficult to navigate. The building of a dam in the Kromme Rijn in 1122 led to a silting up of the old Rhine below Utrecht, especially as it meandered through very flat terrain.
Already in the early Middle Ages (ca. 700) a canal from Utrecht to Vleuten was dug. When the part Vleuten-Harmelen ultimately became too narrow and winding as well, in 1381 the Oude Rijn (Old Rhine) canal (Harmelen-Utrecht) was dug.
Under the expansion plans of the Utrecht city mayor Hendrick Moreelse in 1662-1665 a new shortcut was dug, the Leidse Rijn, connecting to where the Oude Rijn canal made a curve to the northeast. At the place where the new canal connected to the Oude Rijn the nobleman Everard Meyster built an estate called Oog in Al.
Eventually the name Leidse Rijn came to be used for the whole section Utrecht-Harmelen.
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Read more about this topic: Leidse Rijn
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“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
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“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)