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The spout-gabled canal house was built in 1661 for Jan Hartman, a Catholic merchant. He combined its attic with the attics of two smaller houses behind to create the hidden church, which was extended in c.1735.

This was the merchant’s shop, with the wood-floored office behind and a separate entrance for customers. The family and their guests entered though the porch into the dimlylit marble corridor.

Adhering to strict rules of proportion and symmetry, the family’s formal reception room(sael) is a superb example of the Dutch Classical style fashionable in the 17th century. It contrasts with the simpler Canal Room, which would not have been used to receive guests.

Formerly the servants’ quarters, the Chaplain’s Room is in a corner on a bend in the stairs. It’s a tiny, enclosed bedroom with a box bed, simply furnished as it would have been for the priest of the clandestine church, who lived in the house.

At the top of the stairs, the clandestine church(schuilkerk) proves a charming and highly unusual sight. In c.1735 it was remodelled in Baroque style, with the addition of two tiers of galleries, suspended from the roof by cast-iron rods, to provide extra seating.

With space-saving in mind, the ingenious pulpit was designed to fold away under the left column of the altar when not in use. The altar painting isThe Baptism of Christ by Jacob de Wit (1695–1754).

The congregation kept warm with footwarmers fuelled by peat stored in this room above the Maria chapel, which now houses the church’s silver.

In 1739, this living room in the middle of the three houses became the church’s confessional. One of the two wooden confessional boxes still remains.

The rear houses were gradually taken over by the church, but there are still signs of their original use as family rooms.

Once part of the sacristan’s secret living quarters, the charming 17th-century kitchen has Delft wall tiles, an open hearth, stone sink and black-and-white floor.