Gazing Around the Grote Sint Laurenskerk - 2016

Going back a little - We went in the side door of the Grote Sint Laurenskerk (there is a handicapped entrance). And I took a photo of the statue that was outside first. It is the statue to Maerten Pietersz van der Meij. He was the city's carpenter, but became famous by smuggling letters to and from the city during the Spanish occupation. The artist Mari Andriessen did the statute in 1965

Statue beside the church


Afterward, I took some photos of the outside of the church. It is a very large building which is built in the shape of a Latin cross (the diagonal is shorter than the vertical). According to the church history, there was a church here back in 600. A church was founded on this site in 901 in honor of St. Lawrence. But excavations have only found the remains of a 12th century chapel. In 1468, when they were building tower on this church, it collapsed and destroyed part of the church, It was decided to built an entirely new church - starting in 1470 and completed in what was, for those days, a very short time around 1520. Much of the interior and exterior was destroyed in the 1566 iconoclasm - this was when Dutch Protestants were destroying the Roman Catholic art (icons). Until 1570, Sint Lawrence church was Roman Catholic. It remained Protestant after the Reformation until 1996 when it was designated as a museum and multifunctional building.

Windows, side entrance and statue


Carvings on the side entrance


Side of the church away from the square



Plain end of the church

The exterior is faced with what the little booklet I picked up in the church calls "white natural stone" although it looks yellow or cream colored to me in the photos taken on the 28th - the ones on the 29th were more cream colored.

Red addition on the 'back' end of the church

There was a model of the church inside, and we also took photos of that.

Model of the Grote Kerk (inside of the Grote Kerk)


Model of the church showing the 'back'

The interior is lined with red-yellow bricks which are partly plastered.

The Great Organ

At the end of the church is the "world famous Great Organ" which was built around 1640 by father Van Hagerbeer and his two sons. It was modernized at the start of the 18th century by the North German Frans Caspar Schnitger. The case of the organ was designed by Jacob van Campen who also designed several other prominent buildings.

Great Organ

The shutters to close the case are the largest in the world and there is a painting representing Virtue Crushing Vice (in the form of a snake). There is another organ on the side of the church which dates from 1551. This is the oldest playable organ in the world and was restored in 2000. You can also see in that photo the high transept windows which are the highest on the mainland of Europe

Oldest Organ by the high transept windows

I have included in this set of photos, a picture of a painting that is in the Alkmaar Museum. It is a painting attributed to Pieter Jansz Saenredam who was a specialist in church interiors. It matches pretty well with our photos of the church. It was painted about 1665 although it is not signed or dated. Who commissioned it? No-one knows. But it hung in the town hall in the 18th century. Pieter Jansz Saenredam worked meticulously basing his composition on preparatory drawings and measurements. If he painted it, it was done toward the end of his life.

1665 painting of the interior


Ceiling of the vault painted by Jacob van Oostanen


I took a photo of some woodwork which has the date of 1635. Originally I thought this was the place where Floris V was buried, but the date doesn't match, and I can't match this up with anything in the church information.

May be the Confessional or Stalls

Bob took some photos of a ship hanging in the church. This was unexpected. According to tradition, this is the scale model of a ship from 1667 called "De Ruyter mijn naam" (De Ruyter is my name), which refers to the victorious expedition of Michiel de Ruyter to Chatham. It has on it (which you can't see in any of the photos) paintings - on the mirror at the stern the panorama of Alkmaar. There are also four portraits of ladies in the windows of the officer's quarters. So if you go into the church, look for the paintings

Scale model ship

The sacristry has a wooden vault on which are painted the crests of Delft, Oudewater and Alkmaar (towns once united through a trade agreement). There is also the crest of the patrimonial lands of Charles V and a mirrored Dutch lion honoring the crest.

Crest near the sacristy

After we got back to the hotel and dried off and warmed up a bit and it stopped raining, Bob walked over to the RR station


Street near station

and got some money changed and came back with Burger King for dinner. Tomorrow we visit the Cheese Market.