Pieterskerk

(click to enlarge)

The Pieterskerk was consecrated in 1121 by the Bishop of Utrecht. The earliest church was the chapel of the Counts of Holland, who lived in Leiden before moving to The Hague in the mid-13th century. The castle of the counts was formed by buildings that included the Gravensteen, a castle (just north of the Pieterskerk) that is now part of the Law Faculty of the University of Leiden.

Our visit begins at the west front of the Pieterskerk. The single spire here collapsed in 1512. That tower had occupied the space of the first two arches in the nave. No one was hurt when it crashed, but beams from the tower fell across the bed where the pastor was sleeping in his house across the churchyard.

In front of the rebuilt nave end wall is a two-story porch, to which a third story was added in connection with enlarging the bellows of the organ, 1637-1642. The narrow window was then bricked up for the enlarged organ on the inside of the wall. Previously, no doubt, the longer pipes had flanked the west window, as in one of the churches in Utrecht drawn by the 17th-century artist Pieter Saenredam.