Listen | Vegetable Auction
To your right, you can see a wide body of water. It looks like a river, but is not. This is the ring canal of the Beemster polder, all that remains of the former Beemster lake.
When you stood on this quay five hundred years ago, you looked out over a gigantic lake several kilometres wide. You could only see the other side when the weather was clear. On your right, on the other side of the bridge, the River Where ran from the lake into the city. A few kilometres further on, this river flowed into the second large lake that bordered Purmerend; the Purmer Lake. The town was thus situated on the shores of two large lakes connected to the Zuiderzee.
Today, these lakes are polders. The first to be built around 1...
When you stood on this quay five hundred years ago, you looked out over a gigantic lake miles wide. You could only see the other side when the weather was clear. On your right, on the other side of the bridge, the Where ran from the lake into the city. A few kilometres further on, this river flowed into the second large lake that bordered Purmerend; the Purmer Lake. The town was thus situated on the shores of two large lakes connected to the Zuiderzee.
Today, these lakes are polders. The first to be drained around 1612 was the Beemster. The Purmer followed ten years later. The reason for the reclamation was that rich Amsterdam merchants were looking for investment opportunities nearby. Moreover, they saw the new polders as a nature-rich outlying area to build country houses and enjoy outdoor life. In 1612, when reclamation technology had advanced far enough and investors had enough money together, they started draining the lakes. Another advantage of the reclamation was that North Hollanders needed more agricultural land. Here they could grow vegetables and raise cattle. And they needed it, because the population of Holland kept growing. Partly due to the increasing wealth of the seven united Dutch provinces at the beginning of the Golden Age.
All the vegetables grown in the polders had to be traded somewhere. As a result, a lively vegetable market soon developed in Purmerend. The covered vegetable auction was located on this quay. Agricultural products from the new polders were usually brought in by boat. These then sailed along a quay with a shelter. There, the boats moored and the vegetables were transferred into baskets, bags and crates and put on carts. On these carts, the merchandise was driven into the auction house.
Especially in the early 1900s, farmers in the Beemster, Purmer and Wormer produced more and more vegetables. And the vegetable auction grew like cabbage. Only to merge several times with other auctions. Until the auction disappeared for good from Purmerend after relocation in 1980.
Would you like to see a map of how Purmerend used to lie on the edge of the Purmer and Beemster lakes? And what this quay looked like at the time of the vegetable auction? In the location screen you will see photos, take a closer look. Continue your route straight ahead.
