Oirschot

Oirschot has one of the more monumental village centres in Brabant: a large open square, the Markt, planted with limes, with the Sint-Petrusbasiliek on it - a fifteenth-century Gothic church out of proportion to a village, whose tower burned after a lightning strike in 1904 and was rebuilt shorter - and the Boterkerkje, a small twelfth-century church that lost its nave and stands as a tower and choir in the middle of the square. Four religious houses were founded here and the buildings survive, with a community still at one; that concentration is why the village looks the way it does. The Brabant tradition of large villages with monumental churches, funded by wool and later by farming, is legible here better than in most places. There are timber-framed houses, a windmill, and the woodland of the Oirschotse Heide around.

What you actually see

• A lime-planted square - the Markt with the church and the tower-and-choir Boterkerkje.
• An oversized Gothic basilica - fifteenth-century, its tower rebuilt shorter after 1904.
• Four convent foundations - the buildings surviving, with one community still there.
• Timber-framed houses - the older village fabric around the square.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The church opens on limited hours and closes for services. Convent buildings are private or in use. The village is small and quiet - an afternoon. Buses from Eindhoven are infrequent at weekends.

Nearby

Eindhoven is south-east; the Oisterwijk fens are north-west.