Every design for Helmond

Ever followed the Zuid-Willemsvaart through Helmond and wondered why the Vlisco factory sits right beside the canal? That canal is the reason this Brabant city looks the way it does. When it arrived in 1825, it linked Helmond with 's-Hertogenbosch to the north and the Meuse valley to the south, and the old weaving town became an industrial one.

Helmond lies between Nuenen and Deurne, with Eindhoven the nearest big city and the river Aa winding through. The name has nothing to do with the helmet on the coat of arms: it most likely joins hel, low-lying, with mond, a higher, safe place. That fits a town that grew where streams met. Kasteel Helmond, on the site of a stone keep begun in the fourteenth century, still stands at the heart of it, and on the edges the countryside opens up into the Bakelsche Beemden and the Bakelse Bos.

If you grew up here, the map holds your own routes: along the canal past Vlisco, past the castle, out on a bike to the woods on a Sunday.