The place is special. A gentle rise in the landscape, a bend in the road, a cemetery with a chapel, and a handful of houses. A few trees twisted by wind and weather. The hand of sea and ice that shaped and molded Wieringen is visible to those who look around. Stroe is old. Wieringen has been continuously inhabited since 2600 BC. The boulder clay hills rose above the salt marshes and peat bogs. In the early Middle Ages, Stroe was likely already a sacred place for the Frisians, where they gathered to honor their gods. Later, shortly after the Christianization of the Frisians and the arrival of missionaries Boniface, Liudger, and Willibrord, a wooden church was built there.