Westerkerk

The Westerkerk is a three-aisled hall church. When entering the church, the overwhelming size is striking: 30 meters wide, 70 meters long and internally 17 meters high. The church was built in three phases. People worked from east to west. The original building plan should have included a tower at the western end of the main aisle. That tower could not be built, the money had run out. However, a separate wooden clock house was erected to the east of the church. This core is still there.

Showpieces of ‘de Wester’ are the famous choir screen from 1542, the pulpit and the organ from 1549. This is considered one of the oldest and most beautiful organ cases in the Netherlands. The floor of the church is still completely covered with stone gravestones. The graves are all numbered, there are more than 1500. Because burials took place in 3 layers, there was room in the church for a maximum of 4500 burials. If you take the spiral staircase up from the South Portal, you will feel like you have gone back 400 years in time. Here you will find the Librije of Enkhuizen. It is the only seventeenth-century city library in the Netherlands that has been preserved at its original location.

The church was built as a Catholic house of worship for farmers, dedicated to Saint Gommarus. In 1573 Enkhuizen opted for the Reformation and the church was reformed. Today it is an important cultural and social center and regularly hosts concerts, receptions, weddings, funerals, meetings, exhibitions, symposiums and markets. The church is open for visitors in the summer months in the afternoon. In 2024, the opening period is from July 2 to September 2, daily from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM. Exception: the days on which there is an organ concert. Admission is free, a voluntary contribution is appreciated.