Scheveningen is a district of The Hague, named after a fishing town that subsequently became a seaside resort and district in The Hague.
The Scheveningen district consists of the following
districts. (The CBS district code of each district consists of the
code for The Hague (0518) and the district number, for example 01
for Oostduinen.)
District 01 Oostduinen (CBS district code:
051801)
District 02 Belgisch Park (CBS district code: 051802)
Wijk 03 Westbroekpark and Duttendel (CBS neighborhood code: 051803)
District 06 Van Stolkpark and Scheveningse Bosjes (CBS district
code: 051806)
District 07 Scheveningen (CBS district code:
051807), consisting of the following neighborhoods:
Vissershaven
(Havenkwartier)
Scheveningen-Dorp, or Old Scheveningen
Scheveningen-Seaside resort
Fishery area
Driving stroke
Norfolk
District 08 Duindorp (CBS district code: 051808)
District 09 Geuzen- and Statenkwartier (Statistics Netherlands
district code: 051809)
District 10 Zorgvliet (CBS district code:
051810)
District 11 Duinoord (CBS district code: 051811)
The original core of Scheveningen is located in Scheveningen-Dorp,
but not much can be found of the former buildings before the major
demolition and subsequent new construction of the district. The most
characteristic part of the old village can be found at the Oude
Kerk. Original Scheveningers feel like Scheveningen, not The Hague.
After the Reformation in the Netherlands gained support in the
course of the 16th century, the population of Scheveningen
predominantly opted for the Low German Reformed Church, which later
became the Dutch Reformed Church, which has now merged into the
Protestant Church in the Netherlands. The only primary school for
reformational education in the municipality of The Hague, the
Eben-Haëzerschool, can be found in Scheveningen.
The Roman
Catholic population was at least until the beginning of the 19th
century limited to villagers who came from outside. These had mainly
settled in the coastal village as tradespeople or as craftsmen and
they did not or hardly mingle with the descendants of the indigenous
orthodox fishing families. During the pillarisation the Reformed
column in Scheveningen was strongly represented. Despite the
depollution from the sixties, there is still a constituency in
Scheveningen who invariably votes the Staatkundig Gereformeerde
Feest or ChristenUnie. Scheveningen has proportionally more voters
for these two parties in elections than other districts in The
Hague.
Museums: Museum Beelden aan Zee,
Atlantikwall Museum Scheveningen, Bunker Museum The Hague, Muzee
Scheveningen.
Locations (outside): Boulevard, pier,
Scheveningen-Dorp, Scheveningen Bosjes, Havenkwartier, Oostduinpark,
beach, nudist beach between kilometer marker 95.7 and 98, Norfolk
Line Terrain, Zwarte Pad.
Buildings and monuments: Lighthouse,
Memorial Knife, Old Church, Kurhaus, Pavilion Von Wied, Antonius
Abtkerk, New Bath Chapel, Our Lady of Lourdes Church with Lourdes
Cave, Pniel Church, Princess Juliana Church; Leonardo da Vinci tower
(or Leonardo da Vinci building, with a gold-colored sphere on top;
the height of the building, in combination with that sphere, makes
the building easily recognizable in silhouette in the Scheveningen
skyline).
Attractions: Madurodam, Circus Theater, Holland Casino,
Sealife Scheveningen, Ferris wheel
Scheveningen has many
types of Protestant churches, such as can be found in the Bible
Belt.
Protestant Church in the Netherlands:
Old church
Bethel Church
New Bath Chapel
Princess Juliana Church
Zorgvlietkerk
Christian Reformed Church
Reformed Church
(liberated)
Reformed Church
Eben-Haëzerkerk
Old Reformed
Congregation in the Netherlands
Restored Reformed Church
Baptist Church Scheveningen
Salvation Army Scheveningen Corps
Evangelical Church 'Morgenstond'
Catholic Church:
H.
Antonius Abtkerk
Lourdes chapel
Flag Day
Fireworks festival Scheveningen, August
Red Bull Knock Out
Motocross event on the beach.
Triple Ooievaarsrun, 2nd Saturday
of September, tour with trucks for the disabled.
Hipfest Annual
pop festival with indoor and outdoor stages.
GraaiTijd Also
called Flag Week. The days before Flag Day a cultural event with a
lot of live music.
Prinsjespop Annual pop festival, the Saturday
before Prinsjesdag.
Schollenpop Pop festival on the beach.
Historical Festival Scheveningen Festival with old costumes and many
stalls.
In both Scheveningen and Duindorp, New Year's fires are
burned on the beach every year at New Year, with a mutual
competition to see who has the highest. However, the tradition
surrounding the Bonfires ended up in controversy after a fire that
got out of hand on Scheveningen during the night of 2018-2019. Since
then the bonfires have stopped taking place.
The historiography does not provide a definitive answer
about the age of Scheveningen. As with other Dutch places ending in
the suffix (suffix) '-ings', it is said that research by a name has
shown that its origin lies in the 10th or 11th century. The name in
question appears for the first time in a count's register that was
partly drawn up around 1284. There is talk of an area that is
described as a 'terra de Sceveninghe' (land of Scheveningen). It has
sometimes been claimed that a family called Scheven - which owned a
castle near Haarlem and settled in the vicinity of Leiderdorp in the
14th century - has something to do with the village or with the name
Scheveningen, but there is no indication for this. .
Sometimes mentioned, but never substantiated, foreign influences are
also not demonstrable. History shows that the origin of Scheveningen
must have been a purely Dutch affair. Within the already mentioned
'terra de Sceveninghe', an older residential center is likely to
have been situated; This could be an agricultural community, a
hamlet, located a few kilometers further inland from the coast.
Knowledge about that time is quite limited; however, the social
geographer Dr. J.K. de Cock in an article entitled
Scheveningen-Binnen and Scheveningen aan Zee, wrote something about
this that can serve as a substantiation. Also in the reference work
The soil of 's-Gravenhage by E.F.J. de Mulder, De Cock returns with
a contribution to this older 'Sceveninghe'. In his opinion, the old
hamlet - one might think in the 12th or 13th century - has
disappeared under the sand due to prolonged sand drifts.
In addition to the older hamlet, there is the
coastal village that is now called Scheveningen. It is built on
young dunes that developed along the North Sea coast around the 12th
century. The current Scheveningen is mentioned for the first time in
a deed of 1357, in which villagers request a count's favor with an
official document.
The residence of the counts of Holland,
which developed in the course of the 13th century near the hamlet of
Die Haghe, is probably the start of the present day Scheveningen.
Increasing demand for sea fish from the new, rich settlement may
have resulted in fishermen settling on the nearest coastal strip.
A count's decision in the late Middle Ages meant that
Scheveningen did not become independent, but was only allowed to
represent itself with one seat in the alderman's bank in The Hague.
The village has been ravaged by storm tides many
times in history, usually washing away part of the buildings. In
1570, half of the village disappeared into the waves during the All
Saints' Flood, leaving the church on the edge - which is still the
case today.
According to a census in 1680, 917 people lived
in 200 houses in Scheveningen. About 250 of these were engaged in
fishing. Other professions were auctioneer, line turner, ship
carpenter and fishmonger. Non-fishery-related professions included
thatch, shoemaker, tailor, carpenter and baker.
Until the mid-seventeenth century, Scheveningen was only connected to The Hague by a dune path, the Westerpad, which ended at Noordeinde in The Hague. In 1665, the Scheveningseweg, built to a design by Constantijn Huygens, was completed, a long, straight road, which significantly improved the connection. Jacob Cats had a country retreat built along this road with the name Zorgvliet. Other wealthy people, especially when Scheveningen emerged as a seaside resort after 1800, had country houses and villas built outside the old village - and especially to the northeast and east of it. Other buildings from earlier times are the no longer existing Kalhuis, a guard house for people who had to point out a berth on the beach when they landed, and the remarkable Nieuw Soetenburgh country house, at the head of the Keizerstraat.
At the
beginning of the eighteenth century, the village of Scheveningen
consisted of only a few streets. In the course of the nineteenth
century the slums and courtyards were created, which could develop
freely behind the houses that were located on the building lines of
the streets. Because no urban building regulations applied for this
construction in so-called slums (then no unfavorable
qualification!), Construction was cheap and poorly built. Partly due
to the lack of fresh air in the humid houses, which were located in
neighborhoods where there was no sewerage, the chance of infectious
diseases breaking out was high. There were regular epidemics, of
which the one from 1832, with hundreds of victims, was only one. The
Blood Gate was one of the most controversial courtyards for several
reasons, albeit mainly in a negative sense. Everything that was bad
about courtyards could be found in the Blood Gate.
From 1900
on, on the basis of alarming reports and reports, serious
consideration was given to the problem of poor housing in the city
and the remediation of slum construction was soon started. The
remediation was not completed until around 1935. Duindorp was one of
the new housing estates that were built from the beginning of the
20th century.
In 1862 the canal connecting Scheveningen with The Hague and the Dutch inland waterways was completed. This allowed Scheveningen to transport the fish to the region. The canal in Scheveningen has now been filled in, but the inner harbor can still be recognized by the street names: Badhuiskade, Havenkade and Haringkade. In 1882 a second canal was built, the discharge canal ('Refreshing canal'), which later flowed into the seaport (1903).
Sea fishing has
shaped the image of the village for hundreds of years. Scheveningen,
like other coastal villages on the North Sea, did not have a
seaport. That is why fishing boats - first the little finger and in
the course of the 19th century the type of barge - sailed from the
beach and landed with their catches on it. This fishery was mainly
aimed at catching flatfish and roundfish.
From the middle of
the 19th century, Scheveningen started to focus more and more on
herring fishing. The lugger also made its appearance there as a
fishing vessel and after the arrival of its own seaport, opened in
1903, Scheveningen excelled for many years in fishing for herring by
means of skate fishing. This lasted until the late 1960s. From 1905
the fish had to be auctioned at the harbor (and no longer on the
beach), but the fishermen soon complained about a lack of space for
it. To meet the complaints, a shed was put into use as a fish
auction for the auctions in 1911, but it was soon found too small.
Problems related to the overfishing of the North Sea, obsolete
fishing vessels and changed fishing techniques heralded the end of
the large scale of the local herring fishery. Nowadays, only a
limited number of ships fish for herring and then only for a short
period of time.
The current Scheveningen fishing fleet
consists of fifteen large to very large stern trawlers, a number of
which sail under a foreign flag because of the allocated fishing
quotas. These ships fish all over the world. The fishing fleet also
consists of five cutters, which often catch their fish in the North
Sea. There are also a few cutters that are registered in other Dutch
fishing towns, but are owned by shipping company Jaczon, which, like
shipping company W. van der Zwan, has Scheveningen as its home port.
Fishing vessels from Scheveningen can be recognized by their
number, which always starts with SCH.
In the 19th century, Scheveningen provided inspiration for painters of the Hague School, such as Jozef Israëls, Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Anton Mauve. Mesdag painted the 'Panorama Mesdag' in 1881. Vincent van Gogh was also inspired by Scheveningen and the fishing industry in his period in The Hague.
In the year 1818, the Scheveninger Jacob Pronk
Nz. the first bathhouse, a small wooden building with a waiting room
and four bathrooms with a sea view. In 1820 he replaced it with a
stone building. In 1828, Pronk was bought out by the municipality of
The Hague, which had the Stedelijk Badhuis built here, a building
with a central section and two wings. The Municipal Bath was
converted into a hotel when the private foundation Maatschappij
Zeebad built the Kurhaus in 1884 with the help of the municipality.
This Italian Renaissance-style building burned down a year later,
but was immediately rebuilt. In 1901 the Kurhaus was directly
connected to the newly built pedestrian head (Pier). The number of
sleeping places in Scheveningen has continued to grow ever since.
Scheveningen is particularly dependent in summer to a large
extent on day tourism from the Netherlands and Germany in
particular.
The assumption that the increase in the number of inns in the coastal village has developed favorably thanks to the arrival of visitors from The Hague and the surrounding area is incorrect. [Source?] After all, it concerned fair weather visitors; they will therefore not have visited Scheveningen and its North Sea every day. At right angles to this is a fact regarding fish buyers. Professionally, they were obliged to be present daily at sea fish auctions on the beach of Scheveningen. The coastal village did not have enough good water to drink. The alternative therefore became beer. This had to come from The Hague. Some villagers provided the continuous presence of beer that was brought in from The Hague by beer trucks. Given the poverty of the villagers, it must have been the cheap thin beer. Fish buyers from outside the village who had to attend some fish auctions every day had to spend the 'void' between the different auctions in a village that had nothing to offer. So they turned to the beer-leading villagers to quench their first thirst. It probably will not have remained with a pitcher of beer. A hunger that had meanwhile arisen could be satisfied by a fried fish and a piece of bread. The beer-pouring villager was able to provide this with the help of his wife or his maidservant. On the one hand, this created an expanding service to the fish buyers. On the other hand, things got out of hand: that is why in a law of 1571 it was even laid down that fish buyers who continued to digest while the next fish auction had already started, were fined for this. What was initiated by the professional visitors also benefited the visitors to the sea and beach, who took a drink and a snack before their return. The large hotels were created from the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. This took place in the northern part of the coastal village where a seaside resort had started to develop turbulently. The most famous hotel is the Kurhaus, which was built in 1884.
Like many other places on the North Sea
coast, Scheveningen was declared a Sperrgebiet in 1942. The German
occupiers feared an invasion somewhere on the North Sea coast and
decided to build the Atlantic Wall, a wall that should stop the
Allies from the North Cape to the French-Spanish border. The
designation to Sperrgebiet meant for Scheveningen that the parts of
the village closest to the coast were designated as prohibited
areas. After that, the residents of most of Scheveningen had to
evacuate the village immediately. The coastal strip was now
converted into a defense line. Buildings were demolished or stripped
of their purpose, streets were stripped of their stones, and
trenches and foxholes dotted around the coast. A heavy concrete wall
over much of the boulevard was supposed to stop Allied tanks.
Elsewhere a wide ditch was dug, also to ward off tanks. All this
meant that Scheveningen, both the seaside resort part and the old
village, was completely dismantled after the war. This also explains
the new construction that was completed after the war years.
In memory of this period, the Atlantikwall Museum Scheveningen has
existed since 2005, with a permanent exhibition space in an original
German command bunker of the type 608 (Abteilung oder Regiments
Gefechtsstand) in the Nieuwe Scheveningse Bosjes on Badhuisweg,
opposite numbers 119-133. Temporary exhibitions and guided tours are
held regularly.
The Scheveningen prison (later Penitentiary Institution Haaglanden) on the Van Alkemadelaan remained in use during the war years. The prisoners were mainly resistance fighters and political opponents of the German occupiers; those involved were interrogated at various locations in Scheveningen and The Hague. Due to the attitude of its residents, the facility was called Oranjehotel. After World War II, pro-German and NSB members were interned in the Duindorp district of Scheveningen, which had become uninhabited due to the large-scale evacuation.
In Scheveningen, a
small number of predominantly elderly women still wear local
Scheveningen costume.
The local dialect, Scheveningen, is
rarely spoken by young people. Due to the closed nature of the
original village community, many similar family names can be found
in Scheveningen. This led to the introduction of nicknames in local
usage in order to better distinguish families from each other. For
example from the Pronk family, including 'the horse man', 'Piet the
mouse', 'Toothless born' or 'Gerrit de sermon'. If you were a Pronk,
a Scheveninger would automatically ask 'whose are you here?' to
which the person addressed responded with, for example, 'from the
horse man'. Some common, 'typical Scheveningen' family names are,
for example, Bal, Dijkhuizen, Groen, Korving, Den Heijer, Knoester,
De Niet, Plugge, Pronk, Rog, Spanish, Taal, Toet, Van der Toorn,
Vrolijk, Zuurmond and Van der Zwan. . Due to the opening up of the
fishing village from the beginning of the 20th century, this
phenomenon has gradually become obsolete.