Sint Andrieshofje: the secret courtyard of the Jordaan in Amsterdam

In the Jordaan, the district of narrow lanes and canals west of Amsterdam's centre, the Egelantiersgracht is a quiet waterway lined with brick houses. Between numbers 107 and 145 there is a small door that most passers-by walk past without noticing. There is no sign, no shop window: just a door. Behind it opens the Sint Andrieshofje, after the Begijnhof the oldest almshouse courtyard still in existence in the city.

The history

Its story begins in 1614, with the will of the cattle merchant Ivo Gerritszoon, who left almost his entire fortune to found a home for elderly Catholic women. His nephew, Jan Jansz. Oly, donated the land on the Egelantiersgracht, and the buildings were completed in 1617. A detail that says much about the era: the complex has no true founding deed, because in the Protestant Amsterdam of the time Catholic institutions were forbidden and it was preferable to leave no written traces. A chapel nonetheless opened in 1623, later radically altered in the 19th century and demolished during the renovation of the 1980s; from 1699 the hofje passed under the administration of the Begijnhof, which still manages the dwellings today.

The courtyard

The entrance is the most memorable part. From the little door you enter a corridor lined with blue Delft tiles, low and silent, which works as a kind of filter between the noise of the street and what lies behind. At the end the passage emerges suddenly into a small inner garden: tidy flower beds, benches, the narrow façades of the dwellings that enclose it on all sides, and an old stone water pump that remains one of the most recognisable original elements of the courtyard. It is a small, intimate space, meant to be lived in and not visited.

And that is the point: the hofje is still inhabited. The apartments are rented to women living alone, widowed or unmarried, according to a tradition that has continued for four centuries. Whoever enters is not visiting a museum but someone's garden at home. For this reason the rules are simple and must be followed to the letter: you enter only during opening hours, roughly from 10:00 to 17:00 on weekdays, you speak quietly or not at all, you do not photograph the windows of the dwellings and you do not linger long. It is a tacit pact with the residents, and it is also the reason the place has remained intact and little frequented by tourists: those who do not know it exists do not find it.

Getting there

Getting there is simple once you understand where to look. The Jordaan is reached on foot from the central station in about fifteen to twenty minutes, or by the trams that serve Marnixstraat and Rozengracht; the most convenient stops are those around Westermarkt and the Westerkerk, from which the Egelantiersgracht is a few minutes away. It is worth combining the visit with a walk through the district: nearby there are other less-known hofjes, weekend street markets and the city's less photographed inner canals.

When to go

The best time to go is the late morning of a weekday, when the courtyard is open but still empty, and in the shoulder seasons, between April and June or in September, when the garden is in bloom and the light slants in between the façades. A quarter of an hour inside is enough to understand what a hofje was and why Amsterdam built so many of them.