Delfgauw 1

The next stop on my route was the village of Delfgauw, part of the Pijnacker-Nootdorp municipality. Delfgauw started as a small agricultural settlement. From the beginning of the 20th century the settlement developed into a village. After the war the expansion continued and more greenhouses were built around the village.

Until 1921 Delfgauw was a separate municipality. In that year it merged with Pijnacker that in its turn merged with Nootdorp in 2002. A few years later Delfgauw grew from a few hundred to a few thousand houses because the village was a location for new housing development that was the result of the policy briefing note VINEX from the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment released in 1988.

The post office is located in the Albert Heijn supermarket in the Gouden Rijderplein shopping centre. I asked for a postmark and the young AH employee Mathew started applying ink on the cancellation. When I remarked that these things ink themselves, he answered that the ink cushion dried out. That was strange for a newly issued postmark and it turned out that this was still the old postmark that was not handed in in January. Fortunately he also had the new postmark so I could have both. The stamp I used on the cover was from the sheetlet to celebrate the 50th birthday of King Willem-Alexander in 2017.

City/town:       Delfgauw

Municipality:   Pijnacker-Nootdorp

Area:              38,61 km² (Pijnacker-Nootdorp)

Population:    53.830 (Pijnacker-Nootdorp, May 2018)

Website:        pijnacker-nootdorp.nl

Post office

Albert Heijn Gouden Rijderplein

Gouden Rijderplein 1

2645 EX  DELFGAUW

ah.nl/delfgauw/gouden-rijderplein

facebook.com/albertheijndelfgauw

Date sent: 1 July 2017

Date postmark: 1 July 2017

Date received: 4 July 2017

Number of days: 3

Envelope in collection: 208