On this square Waagplein every Friday from April till the second week of September, the famous cheese market is held.

In the tower is a famous carillon weekly played by a carillonneur and also automatically by a drum chiming the quarters of the hour.

In that period it was built as a chapel for the adjacent Holy Spirit hospital where poor travelers could get free accommodation for three days and nights.

In 1582, the weighing activities were moved to the larger Holy Spirit Chapel, which by then was no longer being used for divine services.

Atop the façade of the building is the Latin proverb: "SPQA RESTITVIT VIRTVS ABLATAE JVRA BILANCIS".

This refers to a battle against Spanish Roman Catholics, which, upon the truce of October 8, 1573, established the rights of the citizens to have a weigh house.

Prior to the installation of the de Haze carillon, the earlier, smaller turret on the roof of the chapel held an 11-bell chime by Jacob Waghevens, of Mechelen, Belgium from the 1540s.

Over time, seven more bells were added by other founders, and a baton keyboard, similar to that found on other carillons in the Netherlands, was built.

Some of the bells that had been made for Alkmaar Weigh house and for the Hague st. Jacobtower (Grote Kerk) are today present in the old carillon by Claude Fremy in the tower of the Loreto convent in Prague in the Czech Republic.

After the affair with Claude Fremy the city took the advice of Willem Spraackel and David Slechtenhorst carillonneur of Leiden, who had already advised and worked for the Hague on a new carillon by Melchior de Haze from Antwerp.

The committee from Alkmaar asked Willem Spraackel also if bells from another founder would fit the already-made ironwork.

It was not a problem because de Haze matched the specifications previously met by Fremy and set by Pierre Hemony.

So Melchior de Haze cast a three octave 35 bells carillon in the standard meantone tuning of the day.

Still the bells were not satisfactory, and, after repairs in 1948 by a clockmaker named van de Kerkhof and in 1953 again by Eijsbouts, it was around 1960 that was decided to tackle the carillon in a better way.

For example: The automatic drum got a more efficient wiring to the hammers on the bells, which created more space round the baton keyboard and the attics in between.

The drum (big music cylinder) part of the clock was built in the enlarged frame by Willem Spraackel round 1690.