Zoetermeer, history in a nutshell

The Archeological Working Group Zoetermeer has found a few Roman shards, but there are so few that it is not clear whether Zoetermeer already existed in Roman times. During excavations, older animal material was found. During the extraction of sand for the new housing estates, bones of mammoths, aurochs and sabre-toothed tigers came up from great depths. These animals walked around here ten to a hundred thousand years ago.

Daliegaten in the Middle Ages

The village of Zoetermeer is more than a thousand years old. In the Middle Ages, farmers dug so-called daliegaten. The clay from these holes was used to improve their peatland. At the bottom of such a hole, Zoetermeer archaeologists found a worked wooden pole a few years ago, dating back to the year 985! So people were already living in Zoetermeer at that time.

Pay for botting

In Zoetermeer, a certain tax, the botting, had to be paid to the Count of Holland. It is known that only the oldest places in this province paid that tax. This shows that Zoetermeer must have been founded before 1100. The first written evidence for the existence of a village on the site of the current Zoetermeer can be found in 1269. Count Floris V then gave away part of the tax revenue here as a dowry.

Fishermen and farmers

In the middle of the Holland-Utrecht peat area there was a large freshwater lake. It could be reached by water from the Rhine. A settlement of fishermen and farmers probably developed here. Based on certain parcelling patterns it is plausible that the first settlement took place between the Leidsewallenwetering and the Broekweg, in the so-called Langeland, now the De Leyens district. On the corner of the Zwaardslootseweg there was a small church, on a place that was still called the 'old cemetery' until the 18th century. The settlement was named Zoetermeer after the freshwater lake.

Settlement Zegwaart

After the foundation of Zoetermeer, the settlement Zegwaart arose on the site of the current Zegwaartseweg. It was probably named after the sedge-covered waard, a low-lying area where most people went to live. In the 13th century, the settlements moved from the Langeland and the Zegwaartseweg to the Dorpsstraat . In 1296 there was probably already a church on the spot where the Oude Kerk now stands. Zoetermeer and Zegwaart remained independent, but formed one parish.

Fire and flood

Zoetermeer developed more prosperously over the centuries than Zegwaart. That village was relatively often faced with fires and floods. On 1 May 1935, both municipalities were merged into the current municipality of Zoetermeer.

Palenstein Castle

Around 1380, knight Willem van Egmond, lord of the manor of Zegwaart, had his castle Het Huis te Palenstein built in the Dorpsstraat building. The residential tower was built on hundreds of piles. These were found during excavations in the 1980s. Many utensils from the 14th to the 18th century were also unearthed. The knight's manor was demolished in 1791 and a beautiful country house with a large park was built on the site. This country house was demolished in the previous century to make way for the predecessors of Brinkers margarine factories, which were located in Zoetermeer until recently.

Peat and turf

In the Middle Ages, the soil of Zoetermeer consisted of a layer of peat several metres thick. Fields were planted on it and cattle were kept. The land was drained by digging ditches. In time, this caused the peat to collapse and the flooding increased. In the 15th century, the area was drained by mills. This kept the land dry to a certain extent. After drying, the peat turned out to be an excellent fuel, namely peat. This allowed Delft beer brewers to do their work.

In the water

Peat cutting created large pools of water. Peat was so popular that around 1500 people started cutting peat. The entire peat layer was dredged up, up to metres below the water level. Hundreds of hectares of peatland literally disappeared into the water in this way. The inland seas that were created as a result were dangerous for the narrow peat strips with houses. It was not until the 19th century that all the land was reclaimed by draining.

The relief of Leiden

The Eighty Years' War also left Zoetermeer untouched. In September 1574, the Maas dikes were breached on the orders of the Prince of Orange. The entire area between the Maas and the Rhine was flooded. The water beggars, led by Boisot, sailed towards Zoetermeer on flat-bottomed boats. To the south of Zoetermeer lay the centuries-old Landscheidingsdijk between Delfland and Rijnland. The Spanish had entrenched themselves there. After the necessary skirmishes, the Spanish were defeated by the beggars. The dikes were then breached and the beggars were able to sail further through the Zoetermeer polder.

Zoetermeer secret route

The next obstacle was the Voorweg in Zoetermeer. It was occupied by the Spanish. The road was too high to flood. Wolfert Adriaanszoon from Zoetermeer showed the Geuzen a secret route. With a detour they reached the Zoetermeer lake. From there it was a piece of cake to get to Leiden. The Spanish offered no more resistance. The consequences are well known: on October 3, Leiden was liberated. This is still celebrated annually.

Morepolder drained

Peat extraction created large areas of water. The Zoetermeer lake was also so large that it posed a threat to the surrounding land. The banks were muddy peat, the water kept washing away pieces of the bank. In 1614, the plan was made to drain the lake. Something like this had already been done in the North Holland Beemster and Purmer. Two years later, the plan was completed. The Zoetermeerse Meerpolder was a fact. The polder is the basis for Zoetermeer's fame as a butter village. Due to its size and striking oval shape, the polder is easy to recognize on old maps.

Three Mans Polder, Binnenwegsepolder

In the 17th and 18th centuries, more polders were drained. In the disaster year of 1672, the Driemanspolder was drained. That is now the name of a district. The Binnenwegsepolder followed in 1701. This was not without its difficulties. The village of Zegwaart first tried to drain the polder itself. Due to a lack of money, the rights were sold to the city of Rotterdam. This gave them not only the permit but also the ownership of the drained land. For over a century, two-thirds of the Zegwaart territory belonged to Rotterdam.

The next reclamation also went wrong. The Buitenwegsepolder was flooded in 1759, the land no longer yielded a cent in taxes. So the land had to be reclaimed. Again there was a shortage of money. The lord of Zegwaart wanted to help, he offered to pay 2/3 of the costs. The village council agreed, but had to agree that 2/3 of the reclaimed land would come into the hands of Mr Osy. Moreover, from that moment on he could have the highest say in the polder council. The land was reclaimed in 1763. The polder was given the name Palensteinsepolder.

Dry feet

The last major reclamation took place around 1770. The Buytenwegh and De Leyens (now district names) were pumped dry. The new land was called the Nieuw Drooggemaakt polder. Many residents of Zoetermeer do not realize that, thanks to the efforts of their 18th-century predecessors, they can now live with dry feet more than three to four meters below sea level.

Many beliefs on a pillow

A large group of Catholics went to a barn church on the Voorweg, between Zoetermeer and Leidschendam, from 1685 onwards. The Reformed used the medieval church in the village centre. Diagonally opposite, the Remonstrants had their clandestine church since 1635. The Remonstrant community was one of the largest in South Holland until its dissolution in 1866. Apart from the constant bickering about rights and obstacles, there was peaceful coexistence.

Royalists

Until 1787: the patriots had been temporarily pushed aside by the actions of Wilhelmina of Prussia, the wife of Prince William V. Everywhere the Orangists took back control. In Zoetermeer, tempers became so heated that an Orangist mob marched on the house of the Remonstrant emeritus minister, the Rev. Van den Bosch, and accused him of patriotism. After a fearful night and two days of hiding, the minister fled from the angry mob, fell into the water and drowned. The body lay on the pavement for five days and was then dragged through the water to the cemetery and buried without a coffin.

Churchwardens collect taxes

At the same time the Reformed Church was established in the Dorpsstraat rebuilt. In 1785, the churchwardens were given permission to levy taxes on all sorts of things such as beer, grain and even weddings for ten years, in order to finance the new construction. The church was completed in 1787. The tower had already been largely renovated in 1642 and could remain standing.

Train and business

In 1868 the railway line The Hague – Utrecht was completed. Also Zoetermeerders could travel by train. There was a small station on the site of the current Zoetermeer Oost station. It will not have been terribly busy there. Nevertheless, the train connection ensured greater activity in the villages. The gentlemen Van Well, Brinkers and Van der Hagen started their companies in Zoetermeer in the second half of the previous century.

Supermarket, margarine, baby food

Van Well was the founder of Spar, the company now has stores throughout Europe. Margarine manufacturer Brinkers was located in Zoetermeer until recently and produces, among many other things, the well-known Leeuwenzegel, Wajang and Bak en Braad. Van der Hagen was the founder of Nutricia. Products from the factory have fed millions of babies. Countless children know Chocomel. Nutricia is still located in Zoetermeer.

Butter farmers

In the thirties, fifty 'butter farmers' were established in Zoetermeer. The butter that Zoetermeer was famous for can still be found in many canteens and lunch packages today. The mini-packs of butter were largely provided by the Zoetermeer firm Van der Spek under the name 'Zoetermeers Roem'.

War

Life during the war was very difficult due to restrictions on freedom, distribution of food and requisitioning of all kinds of other goods. Many Zoetermeerders were taken to Germany for labor or as prisoners of war. Others, including the mayor, went into hiding. During the hunger winter, the village was flooded with food collectors from the surrounding towns.

Local resistance

At the end of the Second World War, Zoetermeer was a centre of illegal activities. From Zoetermeer, the local resistance distributed illegal leaflets. The occupiers were thwarted as much as possible. Early 1945, the American pilot John McCormick crashed his plane here. He was hidden in Zevenhuizen. There, like resistance fighter JL van Rij, he was killed in a firefight in April 1945. On Liberation Day, the Germans attacked the Zoetermeer Home Guard. Cornelis van Eerden and Jan Hoorn were shot during that attack. The four men are buried in a grave of honour at the Oude Kerk.

Zoetermeer and Zegwaart become one

The villages of Zoetermeer and Zegwaart were merged into one municipality on 1 May 1935. The new municipality had 4500 inhabitants at the time. Until the 1960s, new construction was carried out on a small scale for the local population. After the war, The Hague had space problems. To solve this, Zoetermeer was designated as a growth centre in 1962. The village of 10,000 inhabitants had to grow into a city of 100,000!

Self-sufficient Zoetermeer

It was immediately clear that the new city would not be just an overflow for The Hague. Zoetermeer had to become self-sufficient. At a rapid pace, the meadows and fields disappeared and houses appeared. In 1991, the 100,000th inhabitant was welcomed. The city was divided into separate residential areas, grouped around a city centre to be realised.

Palenstein

The first pile for the Palenstein district was driven into the ground in 1966. This district is mainly characterised by high-rise buildings. The Driemanspolder district was built between 1966 and 1974. Here, the flats are grouped on the edge of the district around low-rise buildings. Meerzicht started in 1969 and was built with the same ideas as Driemanspolder. The large Westerpark was constructed on the edge of the district. During the construction of Buytenwegh and De Leyens from 1974 onwards, high-rise buildings were completely abandoned. It turned out that flats took up about as much space as low-rise buildings due to the extra space required around them. In 1975, work started on the fourth district: Seghwaert. Here, some high-rise buildings were permitted again. Incidentally, the original polder ditches and parcels were explicitly taken into account during the construction of this district. Rows of trees that stood around former orchards were also incorporated into the street pattern, just like in Buytenwegh.

New center: City center

In the 1980s Zoetermeer got a new center: the Stadshart. As a result, Dorpsstraat lost its center function. In Stadshart central facilities came such as City Hall, theater and a shopping center. In recent years,  Stadshart has been given a contemporary design. Street furniture was designed especially for Stadshart. The range of stores has been expanded with Spazio in Centrum-West.

Noordhove on the Zoetermeerseplas

The Noordhove district was built in the very north of the city from 1986 onwards. This district is located on the Zoetermeerseplas , which was created by sand extraction for construction activities. The lake is located on this Noord Aa -beach.

Rokkeveen

The first pile for Rokkeveen was driven in 1987. In 1992, the international horticultural exhibition Floriade was held here.

VINEX location

The newest district is Oosterheem, a so-called VINEX location. A residential area that arose from the Fourth Memorandum on Spatial Planning (1988) and the Fourth Memorandum Extra (1991). These states that approximately 750,000 homes must be built on the outskirts of the city and in the growth centres of the central Netherlands by 2015. Oosterheem accounts for almost 9,000 of these homes. Construction of the first thousand homes began in 2000, and Oosterheem is now nearing completion. The name of the district refers to a home (heem) east of the original city.