Lange Delft and the Gasthuiskerk

From the Korte Burg you look straight into the Lange Delft, the busiest shopping street in Middelburg, and its name is about water. A delft is a dug canal, and one of those once ran right through the city here until it was filled in. The water went and the width stayed, because the space between the facades still measures out the canal that lay beneath it.

Some way down the street, on the corner with the Nieuwstraat, stands the Gasthuiskerk. It was built in 1493 and 1494 as the chapel of a gasthuis, which in those days meant a house of refuge for the sick and the poor rather than a place to spend the night. The church is among the oldest things this street still has.

The rest of it is far younger. On 17 May 1940, during the fighting over Walcheren, Middelburg was heavily shelled and most of the old town burned out. More than five hundred buildings were lost, among them the town hall, the abbey tower and the entire city archive, and this street was almost completely rebuilt afterwards. So what you have in front of you is a medieval church standing among post-war houses.

If you want to see the Gasthuiskerk close up, walk a little way down the Lange Delft and come back the same way. From here we head east along the Koorkerkhof, and the Nieuwe Kerkgang brings us to the final stop of this walk.