"Tilburg - city of the damned?" a Tilburg Travel Page by ultchuk

Several years ago I read an American tourist guide about the Netherlands. It said about my hometown Tilburg that somehow there was no reason to stop and visit Tilburg. Nothing worth to look at. According to the tourist guide it looked a lot like a town in the former German Democratic Republic. I can imagine and most inhabitants from Tilburg sometimes feel the same when it's the scenery concerned. A lot of the older buildings were demolished in the 60s and 70s, because at the time they thought that no one wanted to see those old buildings any more. The same thing happened in some other towns in the Netherlands. So today we can only look at old pictures to be surprised what they took down at the time.
The cultural life in Tilburg at least was and still is great and I will try to put some of it on these pages. Despite the 60s and the 70s there's still something worth to look at it in Tilburg.

Many of you probably never heard about the place before deciding to come and look at this page. For those who have heard about Tilburg, it's mostly known for the university, the popular pop centre 013, the Tilburg Fun Fair (in Dutch: Tilburgse Kermis), considered the be the largest in the Benelux and maybe for it's textile industry in the past.

However the last couple of years my home town is changing rapidly. Allthough it's not a very big town (ca. 200,000) compared with other cities around this globe, however it tends to develop a bit of askyline. It's not much but if you look at those big buildings you would almost believe it's on its way to become a very large town. Tilburg losing its innocence? Who knows. Feelings towards these large building differ between Tilburg's inhabitants. Look a bit further on these pages to see some of those new buildings. What do you think? Is this what you want to see in a town as Tilburg?

In a manuscript dating back to 709 the name 'Tilliburgis' is mentioned for the first time. Tilburg started out of a couple of settlements of farmers who were raising sheeps. The communities grew and the farmers started to make paths to connect the different communities ('de Herdgangen'). This is how Tilburg became a village and much later a city.

In the 14th century there used to be a castle in Tilburg. However the castle was demolished in 1858.
In 1809 Tilburg was given town rights by its occupier King Louis Napoleon. At the time Tilburg had 9,000 inhabitants.

The wool industry in Tilburg grew fast in the 19th and 20th century and the textile of Tilburg became internationally known. During the 60's the wool industry shifted to third world countries where it was cheaper to produce and the wool industry in Tilburg became less important. Most factories were demolished, and in that way making space for many new areas for people to live.

For those who visited Tilburg in the past must surely remember the old Lind that used to be at the "Heuvel' square. This tree was hundreds of years old, but modern age finally got to this tree. In 1992 the sick tree was cut. At first there was a miracle story about a sapling that had grown just under the old tree. But after nursing for a year the sapling died. There is a new Lind at the Heuvel Square now, but less spectacular as the old one. Memories of the old Lind are the only things that are left.