Description of the attraction
One of the most interesting and oldest buildings in the Dutch city of Haarlem, which you should definitely pay attention to, is the Church of St. John, located in the historic center of the city on Jansstraat. This old Haarlem church was once part of the monastery of St. John and the headquarters of the Knights Hospitallers, and today it is an important historical and architectural monument and home to the Archives of North Holland.
The monastery was built back in 1310-1318 and was a huge complex consisting of the Church of St. John, various outbuildings, a hospital, etc. The land in the very center of medieval Haarlem was donated by Gerard van Tetrod from a noble Dutch family especially for the construction of the monastery of St. John …
Until the end of the 16th century, the holy monastery was ruled by the knights of the Johannite, but during the reform movement that swept through Western and Central Europe, the monastery fell into the hands of the city authorities of Haarlem. Most of the land that belonged to the monastery was eventually sold, and the buildings on it were eventually destroyed. Actually the Church of St. John, which was transferred to the Protestants and to whom it belonged until 1930, and partly the entrance to the hospital - this is all that has survived to this day from the large monastery complex.
True, in 1930 the existence of this historical monument was under threat - the option of demolishing the building and building a nursing home in its place was considered, but the church was preserved. In 1936, the city archive was housed in the building.
A large-scale restoration of the Church of St. John and the buildings adjacent to it was carried out only in 1975-1980, and in 1993-1994 the reading room was significantly expanded, a new entrance and a new information office were made (during this work, the sacristy of the monastery chapel with two cruciform vaults, as well as part of the old cemetery). The last reconstruction was carried out in 2005-2007, after which the Archives of North Holland were located in the Church of St. John.
