St Martin’s Cathedral Utrecht
Major cities across Europe become packed in the summer months. It’s not just Paris, Rome and Berlin: a day in Vienna, Bucharest or Prague is going to be equally overwhelming, and today the tide of tourists is sweeping through Split, Dubrovnik and Valletta. Packed cities have to respond to the needs of their visitors, and so the roads in the centre of these cities are lined with shops selling souvenirs, food (tea rooms and cafes offering snacks), and cheap summer clothing alongside the usual range of international fashion stores. Municipalities are trying to work out how to manage the influx, which often runs for six, eight or even ten months. Cars may be banned, tourist buses have to go to special areas, and public transport is limited in most inner city areas. In the centre holidaymakers can be found sitting at a streetside coffee shop while another member of the family braves the flood to go shopping.
So it was in Utrecht in the summer of 2025, as this formerly quiet city in the Netherlands now receives hundreds, no thousands, of enthusiastic visitors. After a coffee and pastry at the Winkel van Sinkel and continuing to battle through the streets, they can see a church tower behind some of the shops. It is the 112-metre-high (367 ft) Dom Tower, the hallmark of the city. Navigating the narrow streets, you eventually arrive at the Domplein, where you realise the church tower is quite separate from the Domkerk, the gothic cathedral!
Well, perhaps we’ll leave that a sight for a moment ‘over there’ and return to the Winkel van Sinkel. Anton Sinkel was born in 1785, and in 1806 he established a store selling fabrics and textiles. He was a pioneer in retail business with his haberdashery store which dealt in clothing fabrics, stockings, hats, and more . His ambition is described in the popular song “In de Winkel van Sinkel is van alles te koop” (In the Winkel van Sinkel, everything is for sale)”. However, the store became famous because of four caryatids that supported the building’s façade colloquially known as the ‘British harlots’, as “Due to their visible décolleté, these figures were believed to be a potential threat to the moral values of the citizenry.” Today they are seen as less offensive, but according to legend, “only at midnight, the caryatids swiftly and inconspicuously fly across the canal to the opposite side and back again.”
Returning to the cathedral, the best way to see it is from the air, a balloon flight out of the reach of most of us. However, the proportions become clear, a massive spire towering above much of the city, separated by a small park area, and the other side of the open space the remains of the rest of the church, a major building in its own right, but its height diminished by that spire:
So much for what you see. The story of St Martin’s is fascinating in its own right. Wikipedia reveals the first chapel was founded around 630 AD by Frankish clergy, but it was destroyed during an attack shortly after, and its site remains unknown. It was the beginning of a cycle of rebuilding and destruction. A second chapel devoted to Saint Martin was built close to the site of the current building soon after, but was destroyed by the Normans during a raid on Utrecht in the 9th century . It was rebuilt by Bishop Bladeric in the 10th century, by which time St Martin’s had become the principal church of Utrecht, the site of the see of a bishop.
The life of the cathedral remained challenging. The church was repeatedly destroyed by fires and then rebuilt. Then Bishop Adalbold built a Romanesque style church, which was consecrated in 1023, only to be partially destroyed in the fire of 1253 which ravaged much of Utrecht. Undaunted, another bishop, Henry van Vianen, began building the next cathedral in 1254. but the construction of the Gothic style cathedral was to continue into the 16th century. The work was in stages: the Dom Tower was started in 1321 and finished in 1382. By 1515 financial difficulties prevented completion of the building, and in 1566, the Iconoclast Fury swept across the region, a movement based on the Calvinist doctrine, which asserted statues in a house of God were idolatrous images which must be destroyed. As a result, many of the ornaments on both the exterior and interior of Utrecht’s cathedral were destroyed.
In 1580 the Utrecht city government decided to delegate some of its controls over the Diocese of Utrecht to local Calvinists, and now it became a centre for Protestant services. However, the building’s saga continued, and in 1672-3, during the upheavals of the Franco-Dutch War, Catholic Masses recommenced – for two years! After the French retreat, the unfinished nave collapsed on 1 August 1674 during a massive tornado. From that time on, much of the building fell into further neglect. Despite significant renovations in the early twentieth century, much was left incomplete and the nave was never rebuilt.
Images and history are important, but both can only offer a partial insight to a place. However, as the saying goes, ‘you have to be there’. Visually, there are two very different perspectives on St Martin’s today. For the visitor to Utrecht standing outside the cathedral area , the only visible perspective from a short distance away is of the tower as it rises above the surrounding buildings. It soars above the shops and other buildings in the town centre, but you are well aware you are only seeing the upper part of the construction.
Moreover, although you can see it from a distance away, it is hard to reach. As you get closer, passing the Winkel van Sinkel, it seems to be one of those illusions where the tower retreats behind buildings and never appears to become any closer. There are some streets that take a straighter line, but for the visitor walking alongside the Oudergracht, which takes a couple of 90° around the area, any direct line of sight at ground level is impossible.
The second perspective is from the Domplein itself. Once you are there, there are buildings close by to the West and North. The best perspective is from the South, but even then the tower seems to reach up so high you can’t really encompass what it is like. It’s an impressive sight, as is the cathedral building and other offices and meeting rooms across the way, but close by the tower rises above any normal sight line. It is a little frustrating. In many other cities the authorities, or possibly the church itself, would be able to keep quite a large area clear. In Utrecht, the height of the tower combined with closeness of the retail area, and some offices, means that a real appreciation of the height is impossible. That balloon flight mentioned earlier would be ideal.
A completely different way of seeing the cathedral is from the inside. On entering you’re shocked as it appears almost empty. Just two stained glass windows to grab your attention, and the internal decoration is simple to the point of being austere. There’s an altar in the Choir, with a beautiful screen and carving behind. Overall the church has a simple beauty, but it is found in its simplicity, the very opposite of so many cathedrals in other places.
However, then you turn around and see the organ. The case and pipes are set on one of the side walls, with the keyboards and pedal board below. Built by Jonothan Batz, the instrument dates from 1831, although it incorporates parts of an earlier organ, built by Pieter Janszoon de Swart between 1569-1571. It is said to precisely conform to the type of instrument that was being built in the Netherlands throughout the 19th century. Some research revealed that a “church architect, Tieleman Franciscus Suys, from Brussels, designed the case and ornaments, as well as constructing a small building at the back of the church to house the nine wedge-shaped bellows. The case is in a kind of neo-classical style, although in size and proportion (the length of many of the front pipes are far longer than what is required for the pitch needed ), not strictly functional.”
Wikipedia advises that the organ had been superbly designed internally “so that every pipe and each division, with all of its parts can be easily accessed for maintenance and tuning, which was very favourably commented on by probably the greatest organ builder of the 19th century, Aristide Cavaille’-Coll (1811-1899), about the spacious internal layout during a visit he made here in November 1844.” There were many changes over the years. Eventually the organ finally “underwent an extensive restoration between 1972-73 by the Van Vulpen company, which replaced all the stops that had been removed over the last 107 years, and a new modern wind supply with internal regulators was built within the main case, because there was nowhere outside to house a bellows chamber based on the space as originally constructed.”
The organ today is said to be widely acclaimed for its “mild tone and expressive tremulants which makes the instrument far more suitable for the late romantic or modern periods of composition, rather than for the strict Baroque counterpoint or fugal music of Buxtehude and Bach.“ It was wonderful to see. Alas, I don’t know if it was wonderful to hear, as there was no-one playing on the organ, or even practicing when we were there. Despite this it was a gem in a rather surprising building.
