Walk along through the park, past the Tapijn barracks, along the Jeker. Continue past the wall to its corner and then straight to the park’s edge where Tongersestraat and Tongerseweg merge. Until 1868 the Tongerse Gate (Tongersepoort) stood here.
Strict protocols existed around the opening and closing of the city’s gates. As well as the sound of the clappers who hurried through the streets to announce all was quiet, or the cannons of the Main Guard on the Vrijthof that warned of danger, bells also rang out all over the city to mark the opening and closing of the gates. Maastricht would go into ‘lockdown’ every night. Across the road, you can see a long, low building with a protruding gable roof. This is the early eighteenth-century guardhouse with the wall safe that was used by firefighters. It is also called a commiezenhuis, after the customs officer, or ‘commies’, who was stationed at every city gate along with the military guard and kept a strict eye on what and who entered and left the city.
