Aartswoud

An edict from 1404 mandates that the dike at Aartswoud should always be able to be breached in case of an emergency; this happened in 1573, during the Siege of Alkmaar, when polders in the area of the Spanish encampment were flooded. The village was the location of some excitement in 1799 when, during the Anglo Russian invasion of Holland, Batavian commander Herman Willem Daendels charged at a troop of British soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Stewart, and captured twenty men and thirteen horses. According to a source from 1844, the area including Hoogwoud and Aartswoud was owned by Edward or Evert, a son of William IV, Duke of Bavaria, who took the surname Hoogwoud for his family. In 1607 it was acquired by , of the Egmond family. In the middle of the 18th century it was owned by , and by 1844 by Mattheus Johannes Worbert, count of Wassenaar.

A church in Aartswoud is attested probably in 1395 under the name Nederswout, and certainly for the years 1460–1550, according to the archives of the , the administrative center belonging to St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht. The inscription "1515" was supposedly carved on one of the church's beams. Before its demolition the church was surveyed and sketched; the drawings are archived at the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. The present day Dutch Reformed church dates from 1884 and was designed by C. Deutekom and C. Leeuw. Its square brick tower, in three sections surmounted by a small stone dome, is medieval and dates from the first half of the 16th century. An inscribed stone above the entrance dates repair work to 1635. The church bell was cast by Henricus Nieman in the 1620s. The tower's neo Gothic detail stems from 1895, when the structure was covered on the west and south sides in new brick and stone and the lowest section of the north side plastered over. The current hall church replaces the late Gothic church, and has eclectic details and cast iron window frames. It has a box pew dating from 1641, richly decorated with "beautiful examples of 17th c wood carvings", which belonged to the Soete van Laecken family, according to a heraldic image. The church organ was built in 1885 by German organ builder Richard Paul Ibach. The large rectory was built in 1872. Local folklore holds that the church tower also functioned as a lighthouse, since the coast at Aartswoud was dangerous, and that fires were also built to confuse ships in hopes of them foundering, so their cargo could be stolen. Earlier counts typically combine Aartswoud with Hoogwoud.

The village is home to a cattle museum, whose mission is to save older varieties of cattle from extinction. Three nature reserves near the village, the Weelpolder, the Braakpolder, and Kolk van Dussen, are governed by Landschap Noord Holland.

The Weelpolder nature reserve is adjacent to the village.

Aartswoud gives access to the Braakpolder (braak, "breach", points to its origin; it results from a former breach in the dike).

Nearby is the Kolk van Dussen; the kolk also owes its existence to a breach in the dike, later repaired. The Kolk was recently again breached to restore wetland habitat. Meadow birds in the area include the Northern lapwing, the Black tailed godwit, the Eurasian oystercatcher, the Great crested grebe, the Common redshank, the Common shelduck, the Black headed gull, and the Pied avocet. The Westfriese Omringdijk runs along the Kolk, and the bicycle path between Aartswoud and Lambertschaag goes through it; The landscape evidences the entire history of the West Frisian land, including inversieruggen (higher areas of sand in former mudflat areas), daliegaten (holes formed by the digging up of clay, which then filled up with peat that continues to sink, as opposed to the surrounding clay ground), the Omringdijk itself, and the subdivision (verkaveling) of the 17th century. While much of the area has lost its small scale relief through levelling, old meadows of Cynosurus cristatus are still present. Those meadows are helped by the restoration of former seasonal water levels: higher in the winter, lower in the summer. Clay pits in the northern part of the area are home to Common reed and a variety of rare orchids. Part of the area has been turned into a wetland designed to mimic the tidal landscape that existed before the Omringdijk and to serve as a reservoir at high water. A creek is surrounded by wet grasslands, attracting wading birds; the area is likely to flood once every five years, and can contain 60 000 m3 (2.1 million cu ft) of water.