Visit Leiden
A practical guide for descendants who want to walk the streets where these families actually lived, four centuries on.
Before you go
Leiden today
Leiden is a compact, walkable city — most of the places named in these records sit within a fifteen-minute walk of each other, around the Pieterskerk. Nothing here is staged for tourists: the Kloksteeg, the Pieterskerkhof and the Groenhazengracht are ordinary streets where people live, so this page is meant to help you find them, not to promise a polished attraction.
Getting there
By train
Leiden Centraal station is a short walk or bus ride from the historic centre. The Dutch rail network (NS) runs frequent, reliable direct trains from both Amsterdam and Schiphol Airport.
Source: Schiphol–Leiden route data · Amsterdam–Leiden route data. Always check the NS journey planner for current times and fares before you travel.
Practical information
Sites worth stepping inside
Opening hours and admission prices change — the figures below are current as of the sources linked under each listing, but check the venue's own website before you plan a visit around them.
Pieterskerk
Source: pieterskerk.com
Pilgrim Museum Leiden
Source: pieterskerk.com/pilgrimmuseum. The museum reopened at this Kloksteeg address — right beside De Groene Poort — after relocating from its former Beschuitsteeg site.
Museum De Lakenhal
Source: lakenhal.nl
Hortus Botanicus Leiden
Source: hortusleiden.nl
For genealogists
Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken
Their public study room lets visitors consult original archive material and get research help in person, and much of their collection is also searchable online. Opening hours and the study room's location have changed in the past, so check their current visitor page before making a special trip.
A self-guided walk
Through the Pilgrim quarter
Every stop below is a place named in the archive records on this site. The whole loop is under a kilometre, but pausing to read the register entries at each stop makes it more like an hour and a half — allow an afternoon if you want to linger over every place.
Open the six-stop walking route
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Photo: Jürgen Eissink, 2018 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons PieterskerkhofStart at the churchyard beside the Pieterskerk itself. Thirty-three records in this collection place people here — more than anywhere else in Leiden.
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Photo: Rudolphous, 2010 · CC BY 3.0 / GFDL · Wikimedia Commons KloksteegWalk down the lane beside the church. This is where De Groene Poort once stood — the court of small houses the Pilgrims built around 1611 — and it's now home to the Pilgrim Museum Leiden (see below).
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Photo: Bic, 2015 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons William BrewstersteegA short walk brings you to the lane once known as Stinksteeg, renamed for William Brewster, where his printing press operated.
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Photo: Goodness Shamrock, 2010 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons GroenhazengrachtContinue toward this canal street, named in seven records connected to the Robinson family.
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Photo: Vysotsky, 2014 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons NonnensteegThe single most-recorded street in this entire collection — fifteen records name it, tied to the Cooke and Mahieu family.
Open in Google Maps - 6Achtergracht
Finish at the canal behind Marendorp, where William Bradford bought a newly built house in 1612. No free-licensed modern photograph of this particular canal is available yet — the 1614 map and the c1900 photograph on the Achtergracht page show it historically.
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Genealogical research in Dutch archives
Need help with your own Dutch family history?
Radicae offers genealogical research services for family historians working with Dutch records, including family tree research, archive research and translation of Dutch records. Personal tours in the Netherlands and one-on-one consultations on genealogy and DNA research are also available.
Get in touch