You are standing on the ‘High Land’, part of Waard Island in the Rhine. On this spot in 1314 the inhabitants were given a wooden chapel of ease consecrated to St. Pancras. After the expansion of the city forty years later, this became Leiden’s second parish church. It was soon replaced by a stone building which grew in the 15th century to become the present imposing edifice, meant to reflect the thriving of the city. At 66.7 metres, the transept is the longest in the Netherlands. The St. Pancras or Hooglandse (High Land) Kerk was a collegiate church, managed by high-ranking clergy from distinguished Leiden families.

The church reflects both the growth and the crisis during the Middle Ages. On one side (right) an imposing Gothic transept and choir; on the other (left) a modest nave with a small belfry. The Hooglandse Kerk was never in fact finished. Around 1500 the wool industry began to decline and there was no more money. Moreover, the Catholic Church found itself in a crisis due to the Reformation. In 1535 all building activities stopped. Nearly a century later a wooden belfry was added to the tower. In 1572 the church passed into Protestant hands.