Droegeham Flag Porcelain Thimble

The flag of Droegeham

Droegeham is a village in the Frisian municipality of Achtkarspelen. The current village flag was adopted in 2019 and was designed by the local village association, Plaatselijk Belang Droegeham. The flag has three bands in red, white and yellow, with the village coat of arms in the middle. A different flag had been in use since 2000, designed by J.C. Terluin, and was replaced in 2019.

The coat of arms in the centre tells the story of the place. The point refers to the meaning of the name: a dry tongue of land, a patch of sand between the water. The golden point and the blue fields belong to sand and water, the bell to the Buweklooster, the cow's head seen from the front to the Droegehamster, and the green tree to the brink that once lay at the heart of the village.

How the thimble is made

We apply the design to the porcelain ourselves. The thimble then goes into the ceramic kiln, where it is fired at 800 degrees. Because both the image and the firing are our own work, every flag produces a piece in its own right rather than a product from a single mould.

The village behind the flag

Drogeham arose around the year 1200 on a high sandy ridge. The tower of the reformed church dates from about 1225. Bouwe Harkema founded the Buweklooster in the thirteenth century, of which only a bell cage remains. A register from 1475 records the place as Asterham, also called Drogheham.

The village once had its own type of cattle. When a farmer wanted to sell a cow too cheaply, he would say it was no Droegehamster. The expression is still known in the area.

A shape from an old tradition

The thimble is one of the oldest sewing tools there are. It had to catch a needle travelling through thick thread, so it was made of metal, bone, ivory or porcelain. Here that tradition lives in the shape alone: the object has no task, but it does have the recognisability, the gloss and the weight of a genuinely made piece.

Collecting and gifting

Many Dutch villages have a flag of their own, so a collection is never quite complete. The thimble takes up very little room and fits into a row alongside other village flags, in a glass jar or on a display shelf.

As a gift it works straight away. Anyone who lives in Droegeham or comes from there recognises the flag without explanation, and the object is small enough to fit in an envelope.