Belfry Aalst
The eye-catcher on the Grote Markt is the old aldermen's house with belfry tower and district house, popularly called the belfry. The belfry is therefore not 1 large building, but consists of three different buildings, being the old alderman's house, the belfry tower and the area house.
The old alderman's house was built in 1225 and is the oldest preserved alderman's house in the Netherlands. The high gable roof and the four round corner towers are characteristic of the town halls in the late Middle Ages. The belfry from 1407 owes its elegance to the octagonal tower with openwork gallery.
The graceful belfry tower was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 and houses one of the oldest (and still working) carillons in our country.
The neo-Gothic dial on the tower was replaced in 1964 by a half-sphere one. From then on, the inhabitants of Aalst called the belfry “den Tettentoren”, referring to the resemblance between the clock and women's breasts.
The district house, the projecting late-Gothic building, was the place from which the bailiff or stadtholder promulgated the laws for the people who gathered on the Grote Markt.
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