Like most old polder villages old Buiksloot straddles
a thin area of raised land along a road. More specifically Buiksloot was strung
along the sea defences of Waterland against the Y bay and the Zuiderzee. Thus
Buiksloot was located along the Waterlandse Zeedijk until the Y bay was
empoldered creating the Y-polders of Buiksloterham and Nieuwendammerham. The
village of Buiksloot was first mentioned in 1544 and fits with its position in
the landscape in the crossing point of a dyke and a drainage channel for the
low-lying polder land behind. The place name is composed of sloot and buik with the meaning: drainage
ditch with a distinct rounded profile -probably relating to a construction
with a wooden barrel culvert. The Banne Buiksloot was one of the six bailiffs jurisdictions
of Waterland.
The housing in Buiksloot is located on the north side
of the former sea dyke. The street on top of the dyke gives access to the
houses that often have a lower ground floor below street level on the side of
the dyke. The high difference in Buiksloot is some 2.5 metres.
The local vernacular architecture is very
characteristic and draws in many tourists, especially in the reassembled museum
village of Zaanse Schans near Zaandam. In Waterland the green that is so
dominant around Zaandam is also prominent, but cream, grey-blue and grey-green
are also widely used on the weatherboarded houses with their Dutch gables also
constructed in wood.
Seen from the garden village Buiksloterham in the
polder of the same name, the old village of Buiksloot still sits along the
narrow dyke on the other side of a wide drainage channel thus retaining its
charm and historic situation although the surrounding landscape has changed
dramatically; first through empoldering the Y bay and later by developing the
polders on both sides of the dyke for housing.
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