The Nobelpoort is one of the three remaining city gates of the city of Zierikzee , in the Dutch province of Zeeland . The gate is located inland and dates from the middle of the 14th century . The origin of the name is unclear. A drawbridge was originally located in front of the gate. The gates were closed every evening until 1866.
To the age of the three Zierikzeese port buildings , further research was carried out at the end of the last century. This so-called dendrochronological study was carried out by the Ring Foundation in Amersfoort , at the request of the then National Agency for the Conservation of Monuments, now part of the National Cultural Heritage Agency . The material to be investigated consisted of some samples of oak that came out of the shelleither from the large roof of the gatehouse were drilled, after carefully examining which part of it could date from the construction period. In Amersfoort they were able to draw the conclusion that the wood samples came from around 1360. With the masonry of the hefty masonry of the main building and towers one might have started one or two decades earlier, around 1350 when Zierikzee was very prosperous and one stone residential houses in the city center and eastern part of the city.
According to the legend, two sisters with the family name Nobel were living in Zierikzee, one of whom was crooked. These sisters would have disputed the construction of the spiers of the gate. As a result, the spire of the right tower has more facets and it is also somewhat crooked. That in the fourteenth century on the then island of Schouwen indeed a Nobel family existed, becomes clear when consulting the accounts Burgundian-Austrian Period in the archives of the Court of Zeeland in the depots of the Zeeuws Archief. Here are mentioned landowners Pieter Nobel Jacobsz. and Symon Pieter Nobelsz., living there in the thirties and forties of the fourteenth century. The Zierikzeese Lange and Korte Nobelstraat may also be named after the distinguished Nobel family.noble to explain the name of the gatehouse and the two mentioned streets
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