Beautiful Brocante
Spotting the potential of a historic dwelling in a sorry state, Anna Bol has shown that a little love plus an eye for antiques with character can create a warm and inviting home
It wasn’t love at first sight,’ says Anna Bol of her home in the pretty, fortified town of Heusden in the Netherlands. Having stood empty for years, its garden was filled with overgrown trees and shrubs, which blocked out the light, making the rooms dark and uninviting. ‘In fact, I was convinced it was haunted,’ she says. ‘The curtains were all torn and the interior was grey with ugly doors and leaking pipes. Several families shared the property, so the house wasn’t laid out as standard and it had multiple kitchens.’
Fortunately, Anna was able to see beyond the gloomy interiors and she took the plunge, following in the footsteps of her father, who had restored one of the town’s historic properties many years earlier. ‘At that time people didn’t see the point of renovating and preferred to knock down the old buildings in order to replace them with something new,’ she says, adding that it was thanks to her father, Kees Bol, and his friends that a number of Heusden’s historic houses have been preserved and restored, including the house that she now calls her home.
By the time Anna bought her house – built on the remains of the gatehouse that once served Heusden Castle, with cellars that date from before 1860 – architectural protections, similar to listed status in the UK, were in place, which meant that no changes could be made to the exterior. ‘Fortunately, I was allowed to do something on the inside,’ she says.
Anna talks fondly of her father, who was an artist, recalling how most of her friends’ fathers wore three-piece suits and had conventional jobs, while hers favoured fisherman’s sweaters under his suede jacket. ‘As a young girl, I wanted him to be like all the other dads. But when I grew older, I saw the charm of him being different.’
Both her parents were keen collectors with a preference for buying old things rather than new. ‘They liked things with history,’ says Anna, explaining that, as a result, her childhood home looked very different from those of her peers. ‘At that time, modern was very fashionable, but our house was filled with antique and flea market finds.’ An old cupboard that her father rescued from a farmer who’d been using it as a chicken coop was a typical purchase. ‘It turned out to be a beautiful, antique hand-painted cabinet.’ Meanwhile, her mother was a keen collector of porcelain and Anna’s kitchen shelves are home to a number of her soup tureens.
Red painted shelves create a striking backdrop to Anna’s blue and white crockery; 
she collected the tiles behind the sink over several years; 
in a corner of the kitchen stands an antique potty that Anna bought in 1975. Her two youngest children used it regularly. The antique dolls on it are French; 
the TV occupies the middle room, which hasn’t been renovated. The paintings of Anna’s daughters are by her father, Kees Bol. Old toys of Anna’s four children are placed atop the cupboard, along with a few antique dolls from France and the Netherlands; 
Anna has saved countless dinner services, as well as the coffee set in the hall.
Like her parents, Anna loves interiors with a sense of history, so when she was able to completely restore the house in 1984, she was careful to ensure that everything was done in a sympathetic manner. The old kitchen, for instance, was replaced by one made by a local carpenter who followed Anna’s design.
Although the works included a number of improvements, such as a new roof and restored floorboards, the introduction of central heating was never part of the plan. Anna is emphatic on this point. She heats the house with an Etna stove on which she also cooks. ‘And if it is really very cold and the stove can’t warm all the rooms, then I just put on an extra cardigan,’ she says.
As a young girl, Anna would occasionally spend her pocket money in the charity shops that were set up after Eindhoven was bombed in the war, and she still has some of the pieces she bought, including a pair of Champagne flutes, some Biedermeier chairs and a large mirror that now hangs in the hall. Now Anna and her daughter Claartje run a shop, Broc’ à Maman & Fille, in the shed behind her house. Claartje and her husband have a second home in France, which they use as a base for sourcing stock from flea markets and vide greniers. ‘All the things they buy there are later for sale in our small store,’ says Anna, pointing to old oyster baskets, stencilled crockery, antique linen, rattan furniture, vintage postcards and cutlery.
Occasionally, she puts something from the store in her own home, she says, but admits that she probably has enough: ‘My closets are bulging. I have five complete sets of crockery and dozens of separate plates, bowls and soup tureens. Everything is used, but whenever I’m looking for something in particular, I have to completely empty a cupboard first, because inevitably it’s right at the back!’
‘My closets are bulging. Everything is used, but whenever I’m looking for something in particular, I have to empty a cupboard first, because inevitably it’s at the back!’
An antique dressing table with a Biedermeier chair in Anna’s bedroom, along with her collection of old perfume bottles. 
A collection of holy water bowls with religious images line the wall on the upper landing; 
a trio of French glass marriage domes with gilded branches, one of which houses a statue of Mary.
Anna Bol’s
favourite markets and how to get the best from brocantes
Just around the corner from where I live there is a brocante market in Heusden Vesting on the first Saturday of every month from March until December. I always go and take a look together with my daughter, Claartje, with whom I run a shop, Broc’ à Maman & Fille. In Woudrichem there is a nice shop called Oude Liefde, which is open from Friday until Sunday with lovely brocante finds and vintage.
My golden rule when shopping at brocantes is to go with an open mind and just see if there are items that steal my heart. A coup de coeur as the French say. So, my collection and interests are extensive, especially my ironstone collection of tureens, which I’ve collected since I was a teenager.
These tureens are my favourite things that I have bought throughout the years from brocante markets and shops. Especially the ones that are stained and used, bought in France in local small markets. I like that they’ve been used in a farmhouse kitchen with marks of their age. They were treasured by their previous owners and now by me.
My advice for first-time brocante visitors is to go to small local markets and look between everything that’s there. Don’t be narrowminded – sometimes you find the nicest things in an old barn or between lots of rubbish. And, be brave, take a risk, buy something that is maybe not your first choice. Later on, that might become something you treasure.