First recorded as
Durninum (near / by thorns) in a deed of gift from the Frankish Lord
Herelaef to bishop
Willibrord in 721, Deurne remained a collection of subsistence farming hamlets west of the
Peel peat moor until the 19th century, when a newly built
railroad (Eindhoven - Venlo in 1866) and a
canal (
Zuid-Willemsvaart canal in 1826) enabled the commercial exploitation of the moor. Although the peat industry did not yield much of a
profit in the era of
coal-powered industries, the cultivation of the newly cleared land, in the 1930s also by
forced labour, gave a boost to
agriculture,
farming, and settlement alike. Today only tiny pieces of this former peat moor remain, some reflooded as mini
wetlands, scattered along the
fault line that once brought about its very existence. Coincidentally, the very same Anglo Dutch
Griendtsveen Peat Moss Litter Company Ltd. that extracted a significant part of the peat in the
Peel moved to
Thorne (
Moorends)
South Yorkshire, U.K., where several of its Dutch employees settled as immigrant workers. == Transportation ==