Ossenmarkt. (Groningen)

 square, parking garage

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Since the enlargement of Groningen, shortly after 1600, there was more usable space outside than within the walls. The walling was finished around 1624. The Ossenmarkt, north of the Boteringepoort, Boteringegate, outside the walls, was used as cattle market, houses around could be built on larger plots, with sight on the Martinitoren. Behind the houses were teahouses with domes and stables for horses, reaching till the Nieuwe Kerkhof. On the market you see yellowish stone blocks that replaced the glasses that gave daylight to the undergound parking. This is the northernest part of Groningen that is built on moraines.
The Ossenmarkt is divided in two parts by the Nieuwe Boteringestraat, a continuation or prolongation from the centrum towards the north over the bridge from the Oude Boteringestraat. Old and new are relative, but sometimes narrowly related, concepts: Boteringe, Ebbinge, Gelkinge, Folkinge and Haddinge were typical familynames, that were given to the streets. So in the beginning ´our´ street was probably named Boteringestraat, or only Boteringe. On a detail of a map by Haubois, around 1665, we see already Brugge Straat, Bridge Street and Stoeldrejers Straat, Chairturner Street. The name Straat was already used. The Boteringe Straat was part of the infrastucure of the town. There was of course a centrum, but it was not consciuously mentioned like that, I assume. It was the normal lifesphere, like people in a village, where are of course surroundings, who do not speak about their centrum, whereas it is of course the centrum of their lives, the natural feeling. In the surrounding/prolongation of the Boteringestraat was already activity outside the centrum of that time, as the people knew it later, and as we know it now, in the northward used direction of the Boteringestraat. There were already some buildings, also open fields, gardens, bleacheries and fruityards. At a certain moment, when the street is already there, people realise it,unless it is projected before, and they may call it the ´new´.... street, in our case de Nieuwe Boteringestraat. We see the analogy with the new church, the Nieuwe Kerk, and also with the Nieuwe Ebbingestraat, a parallelstreet, east of the Nieuwe Boteringestraat. This means that in the beginning was the Boteringestraat, there was the need for more space, people went to the new space, and made, by walking, or with horses and chars, traces, used stones or wood for a stable underground, and over a period of who knows how many years, a street was formed. At that moment, and who defines when?, the organically grown street generates a new name to the original street, it becomes the old street, de Oude Boteringestraat. The grown street becomes the new street, de Nieuwe Boteringestraat. The Folkingestraat, Gelkingestraat and the Haddingestraat could not be prolonged, because they were already fixed in the townplan.
The street between the both parallestreets of the Ossenmarkt is called Marktstraat, Marketstreet.


On the west-side of the Ossenmarkt, the court of justice is built on yellow sand and under-moraine stones from Skandinavian origin. At the bridge-point of the Ossenmarkt you see a distinct lower surface in E. and W. directions. Go some hundreds of meters north and you are on the lower clay-soil formed by the sea. There grew houses. But in about 5 or 7 minutes by bike you are on the clay, covered by a.o. cows in the grass.