Historisch Museum De Bevelanden

Historisch Museum De Bevelanden tells the story of Noord- and Zuid-Beveland, the two former islands at the centre of Zeeland, from inside one of the oldest buildings in Goes. The museum stands on the Singelstraat in a medieval complex that was once a convent of the Black Sisters and later spent a long period as the town orphanage. The museum continues the collection of the town's old chamber of antiquities.

The building itself is part of the visit. Its convent origins and the generations of orphans who lived here are a theme of the displays, and the rooms and attic spaces give a sense of how an institution like this worked in a small Zeeland town.

The ground floor is given over to the old civic militia companies of Goes, the schutterijen, presented through four life-size group paintings, the kind of commissioned portraits that militia companies across the Dutch Republic used to display their status. The permanent exhibition Met Man en Macht puts the militias into the military history of the Beveland region. Another permanent exhibition, Blinken en Verzinken, deals with the central fact of Zeeland history, the fight with the sea. One side shows land gained, prosperity and wealth, with objects in gold, silver, glass and porcelain. The other shows land lost, poverty and the villages that drowned in storm floods, through shards of pottery, metal, bone, brick and glass recovered from the drowned settlements.

Under the roof, the attic is devoted to about 150 years of Beveland traditional dress. The costumes of Zuid-Beveland, with their distinctive caps and jewellery, are among the best known in the Netherlands, and this is one of the places to see how they developed. Temporary exhibitions cover subjects such as needlework samplers, the building's orphanage past, the polders and the town of Goes itself.

The museum is a short walk from the Grote Markt and the Maria Magdalenakerk, and close to the Manhuistuin garden. It suits visitors who want context for the landscape they are travelling through, anyone interested in folk costume, and families looking for an indoor stop on a wet Zeeland day. The Dutch Museumkaart is accepted.