Sint-Michielsgestel

Sint-Michielsgestel is a municipality and a town in the southern part of the Netherlands. Sint-Michielsgestel is located directly south of 's-Hertogenbosch, the capital of North Brabant province. Its name refers to archangel St. Michael.

Population centres

Berlicum
Den Dungen
Gemonde
Sint-Michielsgestel
Smaller townships, also part of Sint-Michielsgestel, are:

Besselaar, Doornhoek, Haanwijk, Hal, Halder, De Bus, De Hogert, De Loofaart, Heikantse Hoeve, Hersend, Hezelaar, Hoek, Kerkeind, Laar, Maaskantje, Middelrode, Nijvelaar, Plein, Poeldonk, Ruimel, Tielse Hoeve, Wielsche Hoeven, Wamberg and Woud.

Contemporary Sint-Michielsgestel

Major employer in the town of Sint-Michielsgestel is viataal , a resource center for sensory and communicative disabled people formerly known as Institute for the deaf and hearing impaired called Instituut voor Doven .
Most inhabitants are commuters as there is little to none industry in town.
The river Dommel , which flows from a well in Belgium to the river Maas in The Netherlands, divides the town in two parts.
The present municipality Sint-Michielsgestel was founded in 1996, by merging Sint-Michielsgestel (est. 1314), Den Dungen (est. 1810) and Berlicum (est. 1238).
The complete village of Gemonde, which till then partly belonged to Boxtel, was added to Sint-Michielsgestel too.

History

Archeological finds near the township of Halder proved that this area was already inhabited during the Roman era : thousands of Roman coins were found in 1962 not far from the Nieuw Herlaer castle.
These and other local archeological finds are now on display in the Museum of Antiquities at Viataal , visit address:
Theerestraat 42 in Sint-Michielsgestel, tel# +31 (0)73 551 79 03.
Sint-Michielsgestel was named after the high and dry sandy land (=Gestel) and their catholic church dedicated to archangel St. Michael.
Its name was first mentioned when estates or heerlijkheden Herlaer and Gestel were joined in approx. 1314 AD (maybe even earlier but there is no written documentation prior to that time).
The estate of Herlaer already was mentioned in 1142 AD by name as being the estate of Dirck, Monarch of Herlaer.

The kleinseminarie Beekvliet was founded in 1815 in the town of Sint-Michielsgestel. During World War II this facility was used as prison-camp, along with the grootseminarie in Haaren. On 4 May 1942 the Germans imprisoned 460 Dutch men in Beekvliet.
All prisoners were politically involved or otherwise important to the Dutch people. Amongst them were writers Simon Vestdijk and Anton van Duinkerken. Political prisoners were Wim Schermerhorn (Prime Minister 1945-1946), Willem Banning, Pieter Geyl and Jan Eduard de Quay, all post-war politicians.
Currently the Gymnasium Beekvliet is a renowned College (Dutch:zelfstandig gymnasium) with over 800 students.