The history of Makkum

When you stay at our hotel, you will be close to the fishing village of Makkum, which lies on the Elfstedentocht route and was known in the Middle Ages as the "Gateway to the Zuiderzee". The village owed this name to two locks that were owned by a monastery at the time. Thanks to these locks, Makkum was able to develop as an important trading centre with a strategic location. Important for the prosperity of Makkum was the shipping of lime to Amsterdam, which was extracted from the fished mussels and processed in the lime kilns.

Around the 17th century, the Zuiderzee silted up so that large ships could no longer reach Makkum, this changed the situation and people concentrated on shipbuilding and the pottery industry as a source of income for the village, so the village is still known today and this thanks to their pottery factory Koninklijke Tichelaar, which is the oldest (family) business in the Netherlands, and the shipbuilding company Koninklijke de Vries.