By Isla Quinn
Start at the top. The Burcht in Leiden is a ring of old wall on a mound, and the mound is the reason the town is here at all.
The mound
Wikipedia’s article on Leiden says the city lies on the Oude Rijn in the province of South Holland, about 20 km from The Hague and 40 km from Amsterdam. It says the city was formed on an artificial hill at the point where the Oude and Nieuwe Rijn meet, and that the name is traced to a Germanic word, leitha, meaning canal. The same article says an older belief, that the name comes from the Roman Lugdunum, is erroneous. Our reading: the short answer is a river junction with a hill raised in the middle of it.
Wikipedia’s article on the Burcht calls it a shell keep on a motte, open to the public, and says the hill was raised over time to about 9 m above the surrounding land. The dates for the first fortress do not agree even inside that article. The infobox gives 1100, the text says the 11th century, and the text also names a builder, Halewijn I, with the year 1060. We show all three. The article adds that in 1651 the city bought the Burcht and made it a water tower, and that it is now a public park with a promenade around the ramparts that gives views over the city. The Leiden article, for its part, says the mound “probably” first served as a refuge against high water, which is a different reason from a fortress.
A garden for medical students
The Hortus Botanicus sits in the south-west of the historic centre. According to Wikipedia, the university asked for permission to create a garden in 1587, the request was granted in 1590, and Carolus Clusius was appointed prefect in 1590 but arrived in Leiden in 1593. Those are three events, not three versions of one. The garden’s own Dutch-language site calls it the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands and gives its address as Rapenburg 73. Wikipedia’s wording is “the oldest botanical garden of the Netherlands, and one of the oldest in the world”.
Wikipedia lists a large collection of Asian orchids, a giant arum in the greenhouses and a Japanese garden that opened in 1990 in honour of the physician Philipp Franz von Siebold, who sent plants to Leiden from Japan between 1823 and 1829. It also names a tuliptree planted in 1716. The page does not mention tulips, so we do not link the garden and the tulip trade here.
A cloth hall that became a museum
Museum De Lakenhal’s own site, in its account of the building, says the city council decided on 8 May 1639 to build a cloth hall, and that it officially opened on 8 August 1641. The same page’s introduction says 1640, and Wikipedia’s article on the museum also gives 1640. The two dates disagree and we leave them. Both pages name the architect as Arent van ‘s-Gravesande. The museum site says the hall was where Leiden woollen cloth was inspected for quality and given a lead seal.
Wikipedia’s Leiden article says broadcloth weaving was very important at the close of the fifteenth century and that the textile trade declined from the late seventeenth. The museum site says the whole building opened as a museum on 1 May 1874. It dates the Pape Wing to 5 April 1922 and says the museum was closed for restoration and expansion from 2016 to 2019. Wikipedia says it reopened in June 2019, and names a Rembrandt among the works in its collection. The museum’s own homepage describes it as the museum for art and history of Leiden.
A mill with a museum inside
Wikipedia’s article on the Museum De Valk says the present tower mill was built in 1743 and is the third mill on the site: a post mill called De Valck in 1611, a wooden post mill in 1667, then the tower mill. It became a municipal museum in June 1966 and, according to the same article, was working again in 2000. It lists machinery, mill stones, gears and a sundial among the displays.
The university and the rest
Wikipedia says Leiden University was founded on 8 February 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, and that its Latin motto is Libertatis Praesidium. The article calls it the oldest surviving university in the Netherlands, then adds a footnote that Leuven, in the Habsburg Netherlands, was older. Visit Leiden, the city’s visitor site, says there are 13 museums in the city, plus courtyard gardens called hofjes, canal boat trips and a Young Rembrandt experience. Wikipedia says Rembrandt was born and educated in Leiden, giving 1606 to 1669 as his years, and that the Pilgrims lived in the city and ran a printing press there in the early seventeenth century.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia (open encyclopaedia, several articles), the Lakenhal and Hortus sites (institutions describing themselves), and Visit Leiden (the city’s visitor site). We found no heritage-body page we could load. We have left out hours, tickets, sums, visitor numbers and the story of the 1574 siege, which is a subject of its own.
Quick answers
- Is Leiden’s university the oldest in the Netherlands? Wikipedia says it is the oldest surviving university in the country, founded on 8 February 1575, with a footnote that Leuven was older in the Habsburg Netherlands.
- How old is the Hortus Botanicus? According to Wikipedia, permission was granted in 1590. The garden’s own site calls it the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands.
- What is the Burcht? Wikipedia describes it as a shell keep on a hill where the Oude and Nieuwe Rijn meet, now a public park with views over the city.
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Roam first. Shop later.