On the 15 September I visited the Koninklijke Wachtkamer or Royal Waiting Room at Den Haag HS railway station. It located in The Hague, in The Netherlands.

Den Haag HS or The Hague HS‘ full name is Den Haag Hollands Spoor or The Hague Holland’s Railway. It was built by the now defunct Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij or Holland’s Iron Railway-Company. HIJSM was a private company.

Click here for the history of The Hague HS.

You can take photos but…

You can book visits via CultureleAgenda.nl but I visited on Open Monuments’ Day. The guided tour was short but free.

We were allowed to take photos of the Waiting Room, consisting of several rooms by the way, except from the loo. Okay. The privy must stay private. Fair enough. But we were also told the photos were for private use only.

What does that mean? Not for commercial use? Not on Instagram? Not on Twitter?  Not on a blog? Is blog private, commercial or public? At this point Trip By Trip is a hobby for us and not a source of income.

I didn’t dare to ask and I just took photos and filmed and decided to decide later.

After some research I decided to follow the lead of Haagse praatjes and use links.

So click here for some photos and here for a virtual tour.

The Royal Waiting Room at The Hague HS

The Royal Waiting at The Hague was opened in 1893 by then Princess Wilhelmina and her mother, Queen-regent Emma.

The rooms are beautifully decorated as you would imagine with mosaic flooring, red marble from Belgium, stained glass, tapestries, paintings, elaborate panelings in thirty shades of green…

The rooms are decorated in neorenaissance style, showing allegories of arts and crafts. There’s winged train wheel and dragons as supporters. A fire spitting dragon symbolizes a steam locomotive. 

The Royal Waiting Rooms are property of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), the Dutch Railways, not of the Royal House. Last time it was officially used was in 2017.