Saint Jacob's Farm

On the site of this farmhouse on Sint Jacobsbaan in Goirle stood the Sint Jacobshoeve until the 1960s. The name of this centuries-old farmhouse, which also served as an inn, was undoubtedly derived from the name of the road, indicating that this was a common route for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela via Antwerp.
The hospitium of Sint Jacob in Antwerp was an important stopping place. The chapel of the hospitium later grew into the famous Sint Jacobskerk, which still serves as an important Santiago hub to this day.
From the north, there were two routes to get there, one from the direction of Breda and the other from 's-Hertogenbosch. The route from 's-Hertogenbosch - via the Regte Heide - is nowadays often overlooked in Santiago pilgrim circles due to historical distortion: people fill in the old Santiago routes on modern maps. Since a direct connection between 's-Hertogenbosch and Antwerp is not visible on those maps, one does not realize that there was an important European traffic artery there in the time of the Duchy of Brabant.

Historische Routes