Every design for Edam

Edam takes its name from a dam on the little river IJe, close to where it ran into the Zuiderzee, now the IJsselmeer. Goods had to be shifted from one boat to another at that dam, the townspeople levied a toll, and a trading town grew up around it.

What sets Edam apart is how much of that town survives. Everything inside the line of the old city walls is protected, from the main buildings down to their architectural details. Above it rises the Grote Kerk, St Nicholas, one of the largest three-ridged churches in Europe, built on piles in soft ground. Shipbuilding and fishing made the town rich, and from the sixteenth century the cheese market drove its economy.

The name travelled further than the town ever did. The Kaasmarkten Edam still carry it, and the Edams Museum tells the rest. Wear Edam, and you wear a small walled town whose name is known wherever cheese is sold.