The City Hall and a 360 degree overview of the Bossche markets

Stop here in the square.

You are facing the town hall. We’re going to spend some time here while I take you on a 360 degrees clockwise tour and name the buildings and stories of the Bossche markets.

Pèrdjes is a Bosch dialect for horses and refers to the Four Horsemen who turn against each other, every half and full hour, at the top of the carillon in the middle of the town hall building. They are accompanied by two trumpeters on horseback arranged on the sides. They are believed to have been running for over three hundred years and the game has undergone many restorations, the latest being in 2017. These actions always coincide with the chime sound. The carillon dates from 1657 and was expanded to three octaves in 1951.

At the top of the facade you can also see the city coat of arms of Den Bosch, which of course mainly consists of the tree of the Duke. It is adorned with a ducal crown and flanked by two wild men and two reclining river gods. One from the river Dommel and one from the river Aa. The water can arise from the pitchers.

There are two more cornucopias on either side. The wild men symbolize a fortified city surrounded by rivers in a fertile landscape.

The original building dates from the second half of the 14th century.  From 1366, the city council of ‘s-Hertogenbosch had its seat on this spot in the Bossche Market. In 1463 part of the town hall burned down, after which it was rebuilt in its current form. It was completed around 1530 and the town hall was equipped with this balcony porch and the council cellars. My brother’s wedding photos taken on this platform adorn my sideboard at home and we used these council cellars as a family for the 40th anniversary of my parents’ marriage. Beautiful locations that are gladly used by the people of Den Bosch. The town hall now has a classicist facade, which dates from 1670 when the building underwent a major renovation. It is a replacement of a late Gothic facade.

Where you are standing now, the gallows used to be placed, when serious offenders had to be punished. Until 1853, when the last hanging took place at 12 noon under the calling of a large crowd, the scaffold had done its job many times over. In more merry times, funfairs or so-called chariot games took place, on which plays or religious legends were performed for three days in a row. It was also always a great party when one of the four theater associations had won a competition. The burning of pitch tons in front of the town hall was seen as fireworks that usually went together with the loud ringing of all the bells in the town hall carillon.

Now slowly turn clockwise.

De Schapenmarkt, which means The sheep market is on the right side of the town hall. Further on, it changes into the Vughterstraat, the street you crossed earlier. Sheep were traded here in the second half of the 18th century and this is how this part got its name. Before that it was called the Sadeleer, or Zadelstraat because many craftsmen lived there, who provided saddles for all horses, oxen and donkeys.

The oldest hotel in the city used to be located on the Schapenmarkt and therefore on the right-hand side of the town hall. Hotel ‘De Gouden Leeuw’ translated as hotel the golden Lion which was already a household name in 1483. It had a stable for 34 horses and was thus also used as a sort of station for the stagecoaches.

34 horses may seem like a lot, but it was still too small, as the retinue of Paul of Russia noticed when they visited Den Bosch in 1782 with a procession of carriages, strung with a total of 60 horses. As a reminder of the Golden Lion Hotel, the Golden Lion has recently been restored and shines in full splendour in front of the entrance of the current shop.

Turn again and you will see the left side of the Pensmarkt, which we can translate in the ‘tripe market’. On the left side used to be the Palace of the Duke of Brabant, which bore the name ‘de Swaen’. The graceful animal the Swan was the emblem of the Brabant Dukes.

The House with the number 22 on the Pensmarkt, which bears the name ‘the gilded plow’, served as a parish church during the Second World War because the St. Peter’s Church had become disused. Neither the name nor the number are visible. It is a beautiful red yellow brick building and when this route was made it housed two shoe stores.

Across the street from this building used to be a number of important provision stores. The bake house, the cloth hall and the butchery. The latter was maintained by the butchers’ guild. Partly because of their input, the rule was that meat could only be sold in this house, with the exception of tripe, as the cow’s stomach is called. These were sold outside on the street from stalls by the ‘tripe women’, hence the Dutch name Pensmarkt.

The cloth hall in the upper floor was converted into a theatre in 1464 by a group of amateur poets and artists, the so-called ‘Rederijkers’.

The entire building was replaced in 1860 by a stylish building called the Boterhal, the Butter hall. The top floor was used by the Provincial Society. Noteworthy were seven busts of prominent people from the region that were built under the eaves. Three of these statues are still on display in the Noordbrabants museum.

If it had been up to Napoleon, this entire block of buildings between Pensmarkt and Markt would have been knocked down in 1810 to make the entire market bigger.  Fortunately, he didn’t get his way.

Continue turning right. You now have a view of the market with the well, the statue of Mary on a pole and the statue of Jheronimus Bosch. More on that later when you come back here to the market.

Feel free to spend some time here if you like. But let me first show you where to go next.

Walk back in the direction you came from, but take the second street on the right. Here you enter the Kolperstraat and walk until you see a water fountain in front of you.