Dom Tower and St Martin's Cathedral

The Construction on St Martin's Cathedral started in 1254 and took 266 years. They never finished it. Money ran out in 1520 with the nave still incomplete, and then in 1580 the Protestants took over and stripped out the sculptures and decoration. Already a building with a complicated life.

Then came August 1, 1674. A freak storm, likely a gustnado, a violent spinning wind at the edge of a downdraft, tore through Utrecht and collapsed the entire nave in a matter of minutes. The Dom Tower, standing less than 10 metres away, didn't move. The rubble sat there for 150 years because the city couldn't afford to clear it. Only in 1826 was it finally removed, creating the open square you're standing on now. The nave was never rebuilt. Half a cathedral, and that's how it stayed.

The ruins had a darker history too. For decades, gay men secretly gathered in that collapsed space. Around 1730, a nightwatchman caught two men together. What followed was the largest persecution of gay men in Dutch history: dozens tried, many executed.

On a very different note, the chapter house just beside you is where the Union of Utrecht was signed in 1579, the document that effectively created the Dutch Republic. That same room is now the ceremonial hall of Utrecht University.