Carriage

From the time of Christianisation and the building of the first churches, burials were made in churches and around them. The rich were buried in the churches. This went on for centuries, until the churches and cemeteries became full in the early 18th century. At high tide the situation was worrying, as tombstones in the churches would rise up. The expression 'rich stinkers' is probably derived from this. When Maastricht fell into French hands in 1794 and the churches and monasteries were disbanded, it was all over. On 8 October 1798 the French government decreed that burials had to take place temporarily in the former convent cemetery of the Capuchins and the adjacent bleachery, the area between Capucijnenstraat, Bogaardenstraat and Maagdendries. It soon became too small, and the gravestones had to be moved to the new cemetery on Tongerseweg. The Marres memorial stone still reminds us of this (see photo).

From 1811 onwards a series of people owned this plot A247, such as Hendrik Passé, Johannes Lambertus Smeets and Thomas Leopold van Beneden. At first the plot was quite large: in length it was slightly more than half of Uitbelderstraat. There were splits and mergers of plots, sometimes with different functions, but this part remained 'storage'. In 1896 Van Beneden sold this building and two adjacent plots to the Walthausen family. The gable stone Carriage or 'kojts' is located in the corner house Batterijstraat 36 / Uitbelderstraat 1 and is said to be a reference to a former coach house in that spot. Around 1900 there was indeed a livery stable and carriage rental of the forementioned Messrs. A. and G. Walthausen, but they were located in the neighbouring houses 36a and 38 (see ad 28-03-1914 in Limburger Koerier). No. 36 itself housed the coal trade business of M. Dolhain-Defresne. So, was this a mistake? Not to worry, the new brick has been given a very nice spot on that flattened corner of the facade.