The island that vanished, the farmhouse that stayed

Around the 5th and 6th centuries, an island formed off the coast between Ostend and Westende in a landscape of mudflats, salt marshes and channels: Testerep. From the 10th century people lived there, and in the 11th and 12th centuries it flourished, with farms and settlements. The first village was called Villa de Testerep. On the island lay Westende, Middelkerke and the first Ostend, founded in 1266.

In the 12th century the island was reclaimed as polder, but in the 13th and 14th centuries the sea gained ground through rising sea levels and erosion. On 22 January 1394 the St Vincent’s storm destroyed most of the first Ostend; the town was rebuilt further inland. Testerep vanished as an island, but not from memory: in recent years archaeologists from the VUB (Free University of Brussels) mapped the sunken land again using core drilling, sonar and magnetic surveys.

Guesthouse Testerep stands on that historic ground. It is the oldest farmhouse in Westende, until recently the restaurant 't Hoeveke, and is being refitted with respect for the building into a place where a group of 10 to 20 comes together: ten bedrooms, lime-white walls, red roof tiles, a long table and a bar with Ibiza vibes. A holiday home rarely has a story. This one does.