City Hall Venlo - Venlo

The first maps of Venlo show a building that belonged to knight Gerart van Boicholt. The aldermen of Venlo found it a suitable building to hold their meetings, but the knight probably did not want to sell the building. So they came up with a plan: the house next door was set up as a leper's house. Leprosy was an extremely contagious disease, so these houses were normally placed far outside the city walls. The evil plan succeeded: Gerart sold his house to the municipal authorities in 1343 and disappeared from the city. Just like the leper house, which was moved outside the city walls.

After 250 years of use by the town council, prosperity and peace made it possible to modernise the building. Around 1600, the building was thoroughly restored according to the design of architect Willem van Bommel. The Town Hall has many special features, all with their own story to tell. The typical unequal towers at the front of the town hall were built at that time. In the eastern one there is a clock, in the western one a sundial. Scattered across the entire front wall are coats of arms, including those of the city of Venlo, the province of Gelderland and the United Netherlands. The stained glass windows also feature the coats of arms of former city council members.

At the top of the façade, you can see four medallions of famous Venlo citizens. From left to right you see: bell-founder Jan van Venlo, humanist Erycius Puteanus, medallist Hubert Goltzius and painter Jan van Cleef. But the depictions of the last two turned out to be incorrect later on. Hubert Goltzius had been mistaken for his cousin Hendrick, so the face we see today is Hendrick. And no images of Jan van Cleef existed as an adult, only as a child. So, as well as using the wrong medallion, the medallion maker also inserted his own 'fantasy image' of Van Cleef.

It is not only the exterior that is special, there are also a number of art treasures in the interior. For example, a famous Adam and Eve clock from 1716 and gold leather wallpaper from 1734.