Every design for Roosendaal

The first document to name Roosendaal dates from 1268, when the hamlets of Langdonk, Hulsdonk and Kalsdonk built a chapel of their own because the church at Nispen was too hard to reach. The name may mean a valley of roses, honouring Mary, or simply a reed-filled hollow in a marsh.

The town sits in the west of North Brabant, close to the Belgian border, and that position still shapes daily life. Its station is the last on Dutch soil heading south, a railway hub where the Zwolle trains turn around and an hourly service leaves for Antwerp. In earlier centuries the Roosendaalse Vliet carried turf out to Holland, Zeeland, Flanders and Antwerp. Today the centre has the Sint-Janskerk and the Museum Tongerlohuys, a handful of green spaces such as the Paterstuin, carnival in the streets, the cycle race Draai van de Kaai and, every spring, International ABBA Day.

If Roosendaal is where you waved off trains to Antwerp or danced through carnival, this one is yours.