How the Kempen Became Belgium’s Diamond Region
When people think of diamonds in Belgium, they think of Antwerp—the city that has served as the world’s diamond trade capital for 600 years, with its famous diamond district near Central Station. But behind that well-known success story lies a lesser-known tale: the engine of the Antwerp diamond industry was long located not in the city itself, but among the agricultural fields and forests of the Kempen region to the east. As VRT NWS reported in its “Mysteries van Vlaanderen” series, the transformation of this rural area into a diamond-cutting powerhouse is a remarkable chapter in Belgian industrial history.
From Bruges to Antwerp: The Diamond Trade Takes Root
The story begins in the Middle Ages. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the diamond trade shifted from Bruges—then the commercial center of Europe—to Antwerp, making the Scheldt city the world trade capital of Western Europe. The diamond trade moved with it and has remained there ever since, explains Maarten Gillis, a city guide specialized in Antwerp’s diamond history.
But it was a spectacular discovery in South Africa at the end of the 19th century that changed everything. Roughly 10 times more rough diamonds were found than ever before, creating 10 times more work for diamond cutters. Amsterdam was the main cutting city at the time, but Amsterdam’s cutters couldn’t handle the sudden influx. Because of a train connection with Antwerp, the choice was quickly and logically made to expand cutting operations there.
“The train was like a lifeline for the diamond trade, and that’s how the Kempen came into the picture,” Gillis told VRT NWS.
A Backyard Industry Is Born
The Kempen was traditionally an agricultural region with poor, infertile soil, causing many farmers to live in poverty. They saw the diamond industry as a way to earn extra income—and many farming families seized the opportunity with both hands.
The catalyst was Jan Eduard Claes, an Antwerp diamond dealer who moved with his family to Nijlen in 1876, where his wife was from. He worked on diamonds in Nijlen and delivered them by train to Antwerp. In 1885, Claes opened the first diamond-cutting workshop in Nijlen, marking the beginning of a major development in this part of the Kempen, as documented by Kempens Karakter.
What followed was extraordinary. “From Heist-op-den-Berg to almost Turnhout, everyone started building a small building in their backyard and cutting diamonds there,” recalls Luc Buyens, guide at the Kempens Diamantcentrum. “They were cheap and reliable workers, and they were used to working hard and meticulously.”
The train between Antwerp and the Kempen, with stations in Nijlen and Grobbendonk, became the lifeline of the entire sector. Cutters took the train to Antwerp to deliver polished stones, and traders brought rough diamonds back to the Kempen. At its peak, 40,000 people in Antwerp and the Kempen together cut diamonds. The two regions kept each other in balance and could not function without each other.
By 1972, Nijlen alone had more than 200 cutting workshops. The 1950s were the golden years for diamond cutting in the Kempen.
The Craft of Diamond Cutting
The diamond processing craft involves several stages: cleaving, sawing, cutting, setting, and polishing. The most famous cut is the brilliant with 57 facets, which guarantees maximum light reflection and sparkle. In the Kempen, cutters initially made simpler cuts such as the rose, the eight-sided, and the so-called ‘English cap’ or ‘swiss-cut.’
In Slijperij Lieckens—the last fully preserved pre-war diamond-cutting workshop from the region—only flat diamonds were cut, starting with shields and chiffers, later specializing in half and full rose diamonds. The workshop was built in 1908 by Petrus Lieckens on Spoorweglei in Nijlen for his sons War and Denis, who had learned the diamond-cutting trade in Antwerp, according to Bekend in Nijlen.
The work demanded intense concentration. Jef Moorkens, a former diamond cutter from Vorselaar who started in 1975 and stopped in 2020, remembers the precision required. “Then a large piece was cut away too much. Then we had to rework the stone completely. We call that ‘lappen.’ And then there’s weight loss, of course. And the boss absolutely couldn’t laugh about that.”
The Decline: A Craft Moves East
The end of the Kempen’s diamond industry came not with a sudden crash but with a slow decline that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Wages in the Kempen rose, and just as Antwerp had found cheap labor in the Kempen, the Kempen found cheap labor in India and China.
“Kempen cutters even traveled to India to transfer their knowledge,” explains Luc Buyens. “And so the craft they had learned themselves, through their own hands, disappeared to the other side of the world.” In 1994, the diamond school of Nijlen definitively closed its doors.
For those who had devoted their lives to the craft, the loss was deeply felt. “Gone glory, I call it,” says Frans Verhaert, a diamond cutter from Nijlen who worked from age 14 to 60. “Something you loved to see, loved to do, and you see it disappearing before your eyes. That’s very sad.”
Preserving a Brilliant Heritage
Today, the legacy of the Kempen’s diamond era lives on through dedicated preservation efforts. The Kempens Diamantcentrum, which opened in 2014 on the site of Slijperij Lieckens in Nijlen, serves as a living museum where former diamond cutters give demonstrations of their craft. The restored workshop, recognized as a protected monument on 27 November 2008—the 10,000th in Flanders—opened to the public in May 2016.
In 2021, the book “Schitterend Geslepen. Het Kempense diamantverleden onder de loep” was published by Jeroen Janssens and Ziggy Adriaensens, telling the story of more than a century of diamond processing in the Kempen through the testimonies of about forty witnesses, as reported by NNieuws. The vzw Briljante Kempen, a collaboration between the municipalities of Nijlen and Grobbendonk and Kempens Karakter, continues to inventory, register, and unlock the diamond heritage of the Antwerp Kempen.
“In the whole Kempen one finds numerous unique testimonies of a rich diamond past,” says Peter Bellens, deputy for culture for the Province of Antwerp. “The Briljante Kempen wants to increase the touristic and cultural relevance of diamond-cutting workshop Lieckens in Nijlen and the Diamond Museum of Grobbendonk by upgrading the sites to two cultural-touristic spearheads of the province.”
A Legacy Written in Stone
The story of how the Kempen became Belgium’s diamond region is one of remarkable transformation—from impoverished farmland to a global diamond-cutting hub, and back again. It is a tale of craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, and the relentless forces of economic change. The workshops may have fallen silent, but the heritage they created—preserved in museums, books, and the memories of those who worked the stones—remains a brilliant chapter in Belgian history.
As Maria Schellens, a witness quoted in “Schitterend Geslepen,” remembers: “Unfortunately, it all went away. That was a beautiful trade here. People all earned their living. Did you know that this was one of the best regions in Belgium? When the cutting was good, everything flourished.”
Today, visitors to the Kempens Diamantcentrum can still witness the skill and precision that once made this region shine—a fitting tribute to the backyard diamond cutters who transformed an entire region.