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. Physical and social geography The village is a linear settlement which started with the habitation and exploitation of a raised bog in the late Middle Ages. At the time the village was on the Zuiderzee; in the middle of the 16th century a harbor was dug, which was subsequently filled in after the formation of the Wieringermeer (to the north of the village) in 1930. Aartswoud was an independent village until 1812; on 1 January 1812 it was subsumed in the Hoogwoud municipality. As well as the village itself, it included a number of houses along the east side of the Langereis and the northern part of De Gouwe, and part of the Kold van Dussen. Judicially, it fell under the jurisdiction of Heerlijkheid of Hoogwoud until March 1811. Aartswoud had a congregation of the Continental Reformed church, which