Laundry & ironing service in Katwijk

Katwijk first appears in a charter from 1224. Some 150 years later a fish market is mentioned on the beach, and in 1388 that market moved permanently from Katwijk aan den Rijn to Katwijk aan Zee. From the sixteenth century onwards Katwijk developed into a real fishing village on the North Sea coast — quiet, close-knit, built around the beach. Every morning the bomschuit fleet went out; every evening anyone who could pulled along the beach to drag the boats back in.

Katwijk became one of the most important Dutch fishing harbours. The period under the De Ligne and Van Lyere families was a heyday thanks to the fishery. In Katwijk aan Zee stood the fish market; in Katwijk aan den Rijn the related industries ran — rope walks for ship's rope, smokehouses, sailmakers. In 1751 the village submitted an extensive petition to Prince William IV for exemption from the herring-gibbing ban, a sign that herring was taken seriously here. Between 1930 and 1975 Katwijk grew into one of the most important Dutch fishing places.

The print above, from the Rijksmuseum collection, shows the launch of bomschuiten on the beach at Katwijk — the flat-bottomed boat that defined the fleet. In the 1960s catches grew so much that European agreements were needed to scale them back. That was the death blow for Katwijk's fishery: cutters disappeared, harbours aged, the fleet dissolved. The village reoriented itself — to tourism, to commuting work in Leiden and The Hague, and to high-tech businesses like the ESA test centre near the Rijnmond.

Living in Katwijk means having the beach at your door and the city kept at a distance. We run set pickup days through the municipality — Katwijk aan Zee, Katwijk aan den Rijn, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg. Your bag goes along in the morning, and comes back in the evening clean, ironed and folded with the same driver. A routine that fits a village that has known for centuries: close to the sea you work differently, and you take help where you can get it.