Dordrecht history - Bob Wessels - View I

Dordrecht history - Bob Wessels - View I
Welcome to the Dutch city Dordrecht. This is the place where I have been living and working for over thirty years now. The city is over 800 years old and I am going to show you a few historic treasures. You will find out that Dordrecht has a footprint on the development of present day Netherlands
At the back of the Big church, an empty street as a high and timeless space.
This is the birthplace of Johan de Witt. In the mid 1600s he was for over 20 years the most important politician of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
On the right the coat of arms of the State of Holland. On the left, the family crest De Witt, in green a leaping hare, chased by a leaping greyhound and below a leaping beagle.
The beagle looks for (or smells) the hare, the greyhound sprints after it. Symbol for purposefulness / effectiveness
In the middle ages Dordrecht profited largely from its transfer point for ship traffic. In 1544 this building became townhall. Before it was the meeting point of trade, skippers with cargo and merchants with cloth.
This bronze statue shows Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis, who was a judge and mayor of Dordrecht, in 17th century attire. Below the statue is the coat of arms of the De Witt family, with the names of both brothers.
In 1672, the De Witt brothers were murdered in The Hague. The power struggle with Orange Prince William III on who would be ruling the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands had become fatal for both brothers.
If Johan and Cornelis could turn their bronze heads to the left, they would have a beautiful view of the stone Gothic stepped gable of the Golden Ox, a building from 1523. It is one of the oldest houses in the city.
At the corner, at the beginning of the 20th century, was a new, curiously narrow bank building. It is now part of a Greek restaurant, but the iron security bars of the old bank are still there.
Dordrecht history - Bob Wessels - View I
100 meters down the road, we see the Twentsche Bank. It was founded in 1841 by the notable Benjamin Willem Blijdenstein, Jr. from the East of the Netherlands, with a large base of the textile industry. Obviously, also this building has barred windows. The bank merged and became ABN (general bank Netherlands).
Dordrecht was famous early on for its wine trade, German, later French wine. Almost every house in this street, the Wijnstraat, had its cool and damp wine cellar, from which wine was also sold to the public.
The medallions with staff of mercury (trade) and with an anchor (shipping) express with which the bank has become big. In the bank, there was also a branch of DNB, the Dutch Central bank, in the bank. And again, iron bars in front of the small windows.
In the Wijnstraat this is the House of impudence or The Shameless One. In 1650 the then mayor Abraham van Beveren had his new home built. The monumental building from 1650 owes its name to the naked boy in the tympanum. [FREEZE]
It was the location of yet another bank, which, after a few mergers, became ABN bank, which merged in 1991 to ABN Amro.
With several bank and insurance offices, securities offices and cashiers, over 100 years, this street must have been the Dordrecht Wall street!
The West-Indisch Huis was built in 1735. Before that it was a warehouse of the West Indisch Company.
Above the front door are images of the trading god Mercury. A sugar loaf has also been added as a reference to the sugar refinery-activities in the building since 1686.
In 1645 the painter Arent de Gelder was born here. He was Rembrandt’s last pupil.
This beautiful memorial plaque refers to the guild house of the Grootschippers (Large skippers of maritime or sea-going ships). It started already in 1363 with a neighbouring guesthouse and chapel, demolished in 1776.
A few minutes away from here is the Small skippers guild (for inland shipping).
In September 2021, eight firms of round-trip boats united again to provide top maritime services to tourism.
The Groothoofdspoort is one of the 3 or 4 existing city gates of Dordrecht.
On the land side of the gate you see the city arms of Dordrecht.
The ‘gate at the city’s main jetty’ is located at the point where the three rivers, the Oude Maas, the Merwede and the Noord meet.
Here is the most beautiful Virgin (Maeght) of Dordrecht who can can be seen above the passage.
The virgin is seated in a garden (fence, which on the one hand symbolizes her unmarried state, but on the other hand refers to the impregnability of the city of Dordrecht, because it is surrounded by water).
She has the Dordrecht coat of arms in one hand and a palm branch in the other.
Coats of arms of Dutch cities, which were related to Dordrecht, are depicted around her.
Together with Dordrecht, these cities rebelled against Spain in the beginning of the eighty’ years war (1568-1648).