From Mud Pool to Shopping Street

The history of the Morsweg goes back a long way. The street is already visible on 17th century maps of Leiden and surroundings. The areas around Leiden were barely inhabited back then. Up until the 19th century, the Morsweg was a messy dirt road full of holes and bumps. At the beginning of the Morsweg, where there is currently a parking garage, the garrison was stationed. Along the water were estates and construction sites. In the second half of the 19th century, food processing factories arose as well, such as the L. E. Nieuwenhuizen cannery. On the other side of the road, there were parcels that were predominantly used for cultivating fruit and vegetables.

Slowly but surely, more and more buildings arose haphazardly on both sides of the Morsweg. People with horses and carriages can be seen on the postcard in fig. 1, which shows the beginning of the Morsweg around 1900. There are not that many shops yet. The city archives of Oegstgeest, to which the Morsweg belonged at that time, still contains petitions by residents that were sent to the municipality to complain about the state of the street (figs. 2 and 3). The horse carriages that were supposed to move the building materials and vegetables got stuck in the mud. Branches, ice and snow would obstruct the street during the fall and winter periods, making two-way traffic impossible as there was no room for the carriages to pass one another. As more people started to live and work on the Morsweg, this problem worsened - not just for the people who worked and lived there, but also for the animals who were burdened with moving products. In 1913, residents were still pointing out to the city council of Oegstgeest how outrageous it was that the street had not yet been paved: the horses that were transporting goods injured themselves tripping over the bumps and holes in the street. The cities of Oegstgeest and Leiden gradually took their responsibility, and eventually the Morsweg was completely paved and provided with street lights.

The street was getting busier, but so was the sidewalk. With more houses, residents and activity on the Morsweg, the nature of the street quickly changed. More and more shops, such as bakeries and butcheries, were opened to meet the needs of the residents. From the farms that still stood between the houses and streets, horticulturists would sell their produce. Small specialized shops and more luxurious shops popped up, like the Reveilo wine shop in the building called Spoorzicht. From the ‘20s onwards, the numbers of shops increased rapidly. There were now tobacco shops, milkmen, barbershops, bike shops, candy shops, flower shops and pharmacies. With these shops and boutiques, the neighborhood became self-sufficient and that is exactly what the city of Leiden had in mind when it annexed the neighborhoods outside of the outer canals.

Some shops were taken over rather quickly or changed in nature over time. After World War II, several tobacco shops had made way for snack bars. Nonetheless, some of the shops that arose in the ‘30s held out for a long time, like the Hoogeveen bakery, the Van der Voorst flower shop, and the Zandbergen butchery, whose advertisements we can find in the Morspraat. The milk shop Kerkvliet on the corner of the Krugerstraat and the Morsweg survived until the year 2000. The Morsweg was the central vein of the neighborhood, and the older neighborhood residents assure us that the lively shops had made this possible.