https://www.bergueslabelle.uk/introduction daily 0.75 2024-04-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625394327987-C0HJQ9NIVHLT1H3UJ050/_DSC6993+%282%29.JPG Introduction Arriving at Bergues Once you arrive at the Place de la République, you are standing at the beginning of both ‘The Town Walk’ and ‘The Fortifications Walk’. Just go to the Walk pages on this website and off you go! https://www.bergueslabelle.uk/thetownwalk daily 0.75 2024-10-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622122055945-C6VYQINE4UASWHRC8X0X/_DSC9738+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Rue Maurice Cornette with the beffroi as seen from the south end of the street, just north of the Porte de Cassel. If you park at the sports complex parking area outside the town wall, this is the street you'll be walking down towards the town centre. The street is dominated here by seventeenth and eighteenth century domestic architecture, with a glimpse on the right of post-World-War-Two houses that emulate the scale and character of their predecessors while being undeniably modern in concept and detail; more information on the Walk! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622122749946-W929H97YGW17Y7RSWUKH/_DSC5760+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622122899211-S742YLMW3SRFLS580RSM/_DSC5761+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Ancient and modern - A: the Groenberg and abbey site at the top; B: the Place de la République, the centre of town with the beffroi (belfry) and town hall; C: the oval of streets which traces the original fortification, the castrum https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622124464696-FZE2QY0ZRBVD5MSAC795/_DSC0236+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1631532576223-FRWZL0CSEUFNKG8T7C9T/_DSC9573+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …but the square is really dominated by the beffroi, or bell tower, Bergues’s most well-known landmark https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622124886376-MJDDOKX9EERXSU0HE35Q/_DSC5798+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Plan 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625043901429-YQ0HVDRQC2OCBMO8IJC7/_DSC9453+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Place de la République before 1914, when it was still named Place de l’Hotel de Ville. Apart from some of the buildings you see here on the right, and the Town Hall, everything else in this charming assembly was bombed into rubble during the Second World War, resulting in the almost complete rebuilding of the place that we see today https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622199934354-6675WI7V6N848XVKMBIS/_DSC1414+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Aerial view of the town from the south-west in the 1950s with the church of St Martin (top left, still without its new tower) and the town hall (top right, which survived largely unscathed). Between them we see the brand new buildings on the north side of Place de la République and Place Henri Billiaert, which continue along the east half of Rue de la Gare to Saint Martin, south along Rue de Cheval Blanc and then east again via Rue du Marché au Lin. The new housing along Rue Lamartine (mid-right) and Rue Maurice Cornette (right) was still to come, as was the construction of the new École Élémentaire Lamartine on the corner with the Rue Carnot. The reconstruction of the beffroi in Place de la République was not to occur until the 1960s. The temporary housing erected immediately after the Second World War is still much in evidence here too https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622216249838-HJNH8SX73BYZH53BN9MO/_DSC0420+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 7-12 Place Henri Billiaert https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622278537240-S25PJXRWHTH99J76LYLL/_DSC1788+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk And look at the roofline. It does not follow the same line across the length of the terrace but instead varies in height. Finally, the contribution of the chimney stacks – such a strong feature of earlier architecture in Bergues – should not be underestimated; how would this terrace look without them? The answer is ‘less’ – the chimneys are an integral part of the new buildings’ successful integration within the heart of the old town. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622278475091-J77LMCG9KHECWXDOOMV9/_DSC1790+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622278900434-WRPPBQ4QMF3YJ8Y6BS7C/_DSC0415+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Place du Marché aux Volailles, also dominated by the motor car, could become a fine public park, perhaps designed in a formal manner with a variety of trees and a focal point. That focal point could be a reincarnation of the bandstand that once existed in Place de la République, perhaps within a circle of trees . This could be a very attractive space, right next door to the beffroi and open on the sunny, south side. The tourist office adjacent would benefit greatly from this too - at present, it is surrounded by tarmac https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/8c86f0e2-0ed1-4657-9f34-2ab79552dec6/Screenshot+2024-02-13+at+11-30-13+place+de+la+republique+bergues+-+Google+Search.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/f8ad576b-d239-40d2-8f2b-103343c2a34c/Screenshot+2024-02-13+at+11-29-49+place+de+la+republique+bergues+-+Google+Search.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622279964679-2KE9UGKM9G1CRS2Q48TV/_DSC9611+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622280123772-JE5D0TJZ0BYG2CSRIWF9/_DSC0416+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk On the left, the beffroi and landhuys before the First World War, as seen from the Grote Markt. The 1960s rebuild of the beffroi, while impressive, does not replicate the original finer architectural detail while the replica landhuys has little of the grandeur and none of the elegance of the original https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622281386104-92W73CGO3TNH3V37SU9B/_DSC9543+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Above, the beffroi and landhuys in 1940, already a ruin, was finally destroyed by the retreating German army in the last months of the Second World War; on the right, the rebuilt ersatz version as seen soon after completion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622281517307-B6E5FWKFD1Y2SDN1HLTV/_DSC9613+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622283298846-SJLHZL7CSBDXTN91EHB8/Bergues_H%C3%B4tel_de_Ville_R01+%282%29.jpg The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622283780437-HAFGRD3LRYD0INASPR1B/_DSC0249+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk left, the first floor with circular columns, cross windows, balustrade and the only two dormer windows; above, the distinctive pyramides https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622283629531-LUEO5MA5RBAFRVT01BZ0/_DSC9907+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622291926553-3IH73KJZJGW3N3VEP29Y/_DSC0243+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Above, the monument to Alphonse de Lamartine, illustrious mayor of Bergues; right, the wonderfully florid tympanum above the main entrance doors https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622291867036-IVKXPI1W0E4DTEBY3R3V/_DSC0242+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622293373339-XN765NC478LKKBTFN8KI/_DSC0239+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622293487422-NB5XPRESMHFXJNJ37XVE/_DSC0240+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk If you are in Bergues during the holiday season, you will immediately upon seeing the town hall notice something extraordinary – l’Electeur de Lamartine! We saw him earlier on this website’s ‘A Little History’ page. He is a reuze (Flemish) or géant (French), a giant figure 6.5 metres high and weighing 250 kilograms, dating from 1913 and conceived as a bourgeois of the nineteenth century. He forms part of a tradition in Flanders dating from the fourteenth century of giant figures paraded at Easter festivals. Cassel and Douai, for example, both French Flanders towns, also have their géants. The giants nearly always are related in some way to the history, legend or life of a town and so it is here in Bergues because Alphonse de Lamartine was the elected deputé between 1833-39 and is well remembered as being very active in defending and promoting the interests of the Berguois. If you don’t see him in his usual location, well, he does get around! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622294051336-DBSJ6ZEWSUMG9PJ5JCJH/_DSC5799+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From L’Hȏtel de Ville and up the hill along Rue des Annonciades and on to the Porte de Marbre… Plan 2 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622294290472-WC8PBHY0PZHA5T691Y6Y/_DSC1805+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622536048886-1BPTN9ZU5EIL4GK2N4T0/_DSC1413+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Groenberg soon after the end of World War Two with the repaired Tour Pointue (Pointed Tower) and the still badly damaged Tour Carrée (Square Tower). The temporary housing erected on the site was to be replaced in the 1950s/60s by new housing which we take a look at later on. Over at the top left-hand corner of the Jardin Publique and forming its northern boundary, one of the earliest examples of the at-the-time just completed new housing is seen on the Avenue Felix Baert. Notice too, the abundance of allotments on the south side of the fortifications and the deserted Rue d’Ypres of neighbouring Hoymille in the middle distance, the village today a substantial suburb https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622537075445-H4VTAA2A3JJMFVQ758WL/_DSC0091+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Porte Monumentale or Porte de Marbre today with the Tour Carrée prominent in the background https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622537357022-TBB275HPQVY7I0JKGF6T/_DSC9560+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668 effectively confirmed French possession of the area stretching from the river Lys northwards to the coast, which France had captured as part of its war with Spain which started in 1635. Bergues - then still known as Sint-Winoksbergen - was part of this conquest. Hostilities did not cease then but instead resumed in 1677 with the French making further gains; the Treaty of Nijmegen of 1678 brought respite and a reordering of the French border. But it was only after still further fighting, occasioned by an alliance of the English, Dutch, Austrians and the German princes against France, that Bergues became definitively French in accordance with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The gateway you stand before, which forms a splendid entrance to the abbey grounds, was built in 1711 and originally formed the entrance to the abbey palace. It was moved, stone by stone, to its current location in 1816. While the entablature looks to be Ionic in style, the capitals under appear to be some kind of composite, with the columns sitting on good plinths. The arch presents today a somewhat lesser aspect through the absence of the four urns that once sat on the top and the disappearance of the French Coat of Arms at the centre (all of which were added in 1816), taken away by the Germans when they abandoned the town in the face of the advancing Allied Forces near the end of the Second World War. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622541011319-LEZZ99I2J3E2NQ8IECS5/_DSC9853+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622540929448-COHH3ZJ0VEIF1Z4NMBKO/_DSC9854+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Strength and solidity convey the impression of permanence https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622545608119-CK2ZCS2XIJVV8JLOKUNS/_DSC5800+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From the Porte, around the abbey towers and into the Jardin du Groenberg park… Plan 3 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622545947013-YQHFJKJU0QZ6BW215O1I/_DSC3388+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk The splendour of the site may be gauged from the seventeenth century copperplate engraving by Antoine Sandérus, a small extract of which may be seen above The history of l’Abbaye de Saint Winoc may be seen to be typical of so many important and ancient religious buildings in this region, over the course of the centuries. The abbey’s beginnings lie in the construction of a church around 900 AD near the Groenberg, ordered by Baldwin II who transferred the relics of Saint Winoc to the new church after the monastery at Wormhout (some ten kilometres south of Bergues) was destroyed by the Vikings. The Wormhout monastery was rebuilt but later again destroyed, this time by the Normans, which led to the foundation of the monastery on the Groenberg in 1022 by Baldwin-the-Bearded, fourth Count of Flanders. The monastery was Benedictine, populated by monks from the Abbey of Saint Bertin in Saint Omer (that abbey today, an impressive ruin); the link between Saint Winoc and Saint Bertin was to be maintained for centuries. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622546389687-Q0WTT74HP2911KT03A3H/_DSC9825+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Tour Carrée, the crossing tower of the abbey church, and the Tour Pointue, once attached to the north-west corner of the west front https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624972632476-GCYH6NA8B698QFH4G2C5/JGr85VOpTMYhZ93Te9qZSW8ULMI8LBz6DFO-APiYsb0VRr_7ATKmqgChjMWXW3LFp1oSFKon9D8IHl1VjVlwt5oIqcucdUjnBL8.jpg The Town Walk Left, the remains of the abbey church of Saint-Bertin in Saint-Omer, which was the mother church of the Abbey of Saint-Winoc in Bergues. Above, an engraving of the nineteenth century illustrating the ruined magnificence of Saint-Bertin’s achievement, before demolition started https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624972542898-BYL6QHEIPUHWSJ05QFPZ/Abbaye_Saint-Bertin.de_Saint-Omer.jpg The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622547200001-JS9Q4GHFIM0XW8X6AZXQ/_DSC2020+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The church of Saint-Omer at Quaëdypre, a treasure trove of church fittings that once graced the interior of the Abbey of Saint Winoc. Below, just a few of the choirstall carvings… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622547088743-ESMMCSFNELZUBQ0312VR/_DSC2016+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622548481085-3M61DXTVWOQ6VHAOQ86Q/_DSC2023+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk And a detail from the pulpit https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624973959420-TXXR48KB3U2PSS2PVBZQ/_DSC9607+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Aerial view of the Groenberg pre-1914 with the Rue de Ypres running diagonally across the site from the bottom-right. Almost all the houses to be seen here were to be lost in the coming wars (just a few on the extreme right remain with us today), while the hundreds of trees that once covered the abbey site had already been cleared to create the Champs de Mars parade ground decades earlier. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622551825727-D12G2C3X69BGOSCFY6XT/_DSC0094+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Tour Carrée, while a still mightily impressive structure today, can only hint through some of its remaining details at the splendour that was once the abbey church… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623078002000-4B49ODD3PASMTBC0B90M/_DSC1742+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623080389733-63LZRN7FCSLZIPPUS311/_DSC2579+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623079741609-F7C12M1A6DPL2QKQG7PP/_DSC0101+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The extraordinary variety of brick and stone to be found on the Tour Carrée belies the frequency of repair necessary over the centuries after the French Revolution. Occasional original details stand out, such as the remnants of attached column shafts using a creamy stone from Cassel (east side, belonging to the choir) and (right) this bricked-up Romanesque doorway, once part of the south transept https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623081250860-MRC10U6GW3ITMLHDNRZ0/_DSC9839+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk You will not have failed to notice the lovely setting of the abbey remains, with trees skirting the site perimeter on south and east sides and the jardin publique to the north. It is difficult today to visualise what this area looked like at the end of the last war but pretty well everything south of the abbey was destroyed and a wasteland. Temporary housing was built soon after hostilities ceased and to a plan which had nothing to do with the original street pattern. These dwellings were replaced by those we will now take a look at https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623081332461-X6WAIYLEHHJH3Q5DQAAE/_DSC9838+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623081566535-2IZPU2FASOI6TKID90JH/_DSC5801+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …into the Jardins du Groenberg, passing by the café/restaurant l’Aubette and onto the Avenue Félix Baert…. Plan 4 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623082256733-E563L7KLLWLO9SAVUHYX/_DSC9841+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk what could be nicer? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623082521753-JUHZ8XGZLK8LBHX6F2PB/_DSC2574+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623247681579-O7X4NY7O0WKY2VXNWA0H/_DSC5802+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …to turn right into Avenue du Général de Gaulle with Place Charles de Croocq on the left… Plan 5 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623247978559-W8UA6XDTKJXGTHTA9S6Z/_DSC9801+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Avenue du Général de Gaulle https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623248460195-VXD8EKBKU7KQLSLPQB29/_DSC9794+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …41-51 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623248227002-W1SDIEJKTERCVK6Z55AD/_DSC9787+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 25-39… Standing at the beginning of Avenue du Général de Gaulle and looking at the houses on both sides, we see their design is quite dramatically different from those we’ve just walked past in the Avenue Félix Baert. They follow the ‘Bergues’ design type in that they are built of brick and are two-storey with - sometimes - a third storey contained within a tiled pitched roof; occasionally, the houses are single-storey, with the second storey contained within the roof. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623248764179-ANDHHS3PHR4BFONXCPM7/_DSC9788+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623249018317-N72S6WHHLVOAFF1U03GN/_DSC9797+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623249256399-IOTSABAKBHIGU63OHQZV/_DSC9800+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623249490760-ZR0HWAPUX4RTMTIXCO3A/_DSC5803+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …and right into Rue d’Ypres with a quick diversion, before we leave the Groenberg… Plan 6 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623251409658-3ESYXRBBJ3JQCTS0Y4KO/_DSC0385+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Returning to the Rue d’Ypres and at the next junction, we are at the top of the Marché aux Chevaux (Horse Market) to the left. Standing looking downhill, there is a fine view of the Marché as well as the beffroi in the distance, while on the right stands the partially-rebuilt boundary wall to the one-time Pavillon Saint-Winoc, a large two-storey, pitched-roof building that housed the officers’ mess and library of the military garrison; it was lost in the First World War. The house occupying the site’s north-east corner was amongst the first to be built after World War Two. As we proceed downhill, you will not fail to notice some fine buildings along the Marché until we reach the junction with Rue des Cavaliers (on the right) and Rue du Séminaire (on the left). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623251029336-1Y8MLHEYIQC4A6KGXWLF/_DSC1511+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Marché aux Chevaux forms a fine prelude to our leaving the Groenberg and starting to examine some of Bergues’s splendid 16th-18th centuries’ domestic architecture…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623251848977-1FOQO7MM948QONHMC80C/_DSC5804+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …downhill along the Marché aux Chevaux until we reach Rue du Séminaire on the left… Plan 7 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623252221640-0E5XBAWI2GVAM0ZB8TNK/_DSC2083+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Rue du Séminaire https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623253451671-GNYIXVXQ1ZOX2HAXQKBC/_DSC9866+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623253848644-205GECRAMSQHSIPQ96TN/_DSC3914+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Work on the corner site had already started in June 2020. Judging by the replacement of the original windows with new to the First Floor, it appears ‘Option b’ of the two proposals for this site has been adopted - see below - but it is a shame that the new windows do not replicate the originals. Also, they are made of PVCu, not the most environmentally friendly of choices available In 2020, the town council was considering two possible scenarios in this location which included the rehabilitation of the collège for housing. If we walk a little further down the street i.e. heading south, you’ll see next door a fine brick façade with a pedimented door with the walls each side with projecting brick panels; behind this lies a large hangar (shed), once used by the town. On its left side and forming the corner, a two-storey, pitched-roof brick building constructed in the 1960s, also once used by the town. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625051847854-RLLF21MJ8ITRVY96Z82M/_DSC3491+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625051878660-IDWO958J1JVKJN0GXOWK/_DSC3492+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The proposals for the redevelopment; option a) on the left, option b) above https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/4eae918e-b04a-4a49-949a-7b5489f26029/_DSC1612+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/29a03049-4279-447a-80aa-a809b190c4c5/_DSC1611+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The site in July 2022. The ‘60s building is almost finished and while unremarkable, looks good enough. Less attractive is the bare expanse of asphalt and perimeter wall in front of it; let’s hope this area is going to receive some landscaping. As for the ‘shed’, it has had 6 new window openings punched through it which, while at least arranged in a manner logical to a symmetrical facade, do not sit happily within the panels of brickwork defined by the piers and stringcourse. At least the windows are set well back within the wall, aiding the building’s sturdy appearance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623254485698-DSERBRLDE2CWWTEQADJG/_DSC1535+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623254800866-HROFGQ4A2K4ZDZ2541L8/_DSC0389+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Marvellously picturesque, not one of the houses in this terrace is identical to its neighbour but the communality of detailing tells us the design comes from one hand. Another example in Bergues of successful modern design in a historic context While we are here, you might like to take a look at another variation of post-war domestic design in the shape of the terrace of houses stepping up the Rue Pierre Decroo (1913-1950, aviator born in Bergues who as part of a distinguished career in France also served in the RAF during the last war, winning a Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts during the Normandy landings). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623319505879-C5ZUR6VYJSEG9YTDXJCW/_DSC4258+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623321278125-ZSZJRWELMBJZ7151WUBI/_DSC2206+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623321810412-JE2W0QL05M6T8PTVZS20/_DSC2061+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623322250055-5EUCBENC7CGYLTOQNZYD/_DSC0132+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625055494390-6MK2X35ROH840U5GJI2W/_DSC2090+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 9 Rue des Cavaliers, a pilastre maison (pilaster house) on the corner with the Marché aux Chevaux has that rare thing in Bergues, a fine end-gable facade facing the Marché which in architectural treatment is very different from the main elevation, quite possibly because the original wall was lost and the new built to deliberately contrast, so as to mark it of different date. The setting-out of the blind windows at first sight appears symmetrically arranged but no, not quite! The main facade is very finely proportioned with brick pilasters defining the 6 bays and the window openings retain their original thick-set timber frames, indicating the building’s probable early 18th century date of construction. Not so attractive, the crudely rendered panels between the capitals…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623338375014-2JM2TJOTDTY3RQ3YAHMO/_DSC2092+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623338827781-U7GIDE9861U10V7MS9H6/_DSC1869+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 8 Rue des Cavaliers is dated ‘AN NO 17 69’ on the first floor window apron panels via applied cartouches which have a decidedly baroque feel. Notice also that the ground floor windows have thick timber frames whereas those to the first floor have their (modern) frames set behind the brickwork. That may be because the house lost its first floor and roof, probably during the last war. It’s a puzzle though, as those first floor windows, together with the perfect line of the roof slope and the mechanically-made interlocking tiles covering that roof suggest ‘new’, whereas the single dormer window looks absolutely original. And would they have bothered to reinstate the brick cornice (today covered in plaster)? Who knows… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623338758308-TCKM4E7TJT7RO3E4PP0R/_DSC2059+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623339925107-X7131UDTFJ7V1FCIDFNM/_DSC2061+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623340358590-GRBS7JIJLWESVKZ3VL59/_DSC1866+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 4 Rue des Cavaliers just a couple of doors along is a very fine and spacious pilastre maison from the same period with a nice set of entrance steps, raised panels under the first-floor windows and modern ‘T’ windows instead of the ‘cross’ windows we see predominantly in the older houses. The frieze under the eaves is a particularly fine example of the bricklayer’s craft. Attached to the mansard roof, five dormer windows of which just three are original. Those still have their Classical brackets supporting an extended gable end roof. Rather less successful are the rather mean segmented brick arches to the ground floor windows. The front door and ornate fanlight are very fine (original too) and the stone plinth with integral window cill stringcourse expertly ties all five bays together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623341184519-LUF0Q5GXO0GP8PFDEZB1/_DSC3913+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623411513290-4SGWWJDV870XM9AP28TE/_DSC1681+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Rue des Annonciades as seen from Rue des Cavaliers Before resuming the tour proper, Rue des Cavaliers leads to the Rue des Annonciades, the street in which we walked uphill to the abbey earlier. It too has several fine houses so let’s take a look! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623416354739-2KCET947KEZ0ZGM40WL9/_DSC1806+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 11 Rue des Annonciades is of the eighteenth century and has an asymmetrically-arranged facade with three narrow bays – one containing the entrance door – with the two wider bays on the right. All the window openings have segmented brick arches with stone cills (which, looking so pristine, may have replaced original brick) while the windows themselves are of the ‘cross’ window type. The shutter hooks are still present to all the windows (a nice detail being the setting of the hooks within a stone block) but where are the shutters themselves? The first floor windows are graced with iron grilles which may be of later date. The front door has four raised-and-fielded panels with a glazed fanlight over; the ironwork here looks modern. Still present, two identical foot scrapers! The only unfortunate aspect of this fine building is the truncated roof over the two-bay half. And the gutter could do with a coat of paint… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623416436743-W65EWK7QH7B7U5SJRSQ9/_DSC0105+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623418806593-EKQN5VRJSTPYA77BEDWV/_DSC1811+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 13 Rue des Annonciades next door is better with regard to completeness. It too has an asymmetrical composition made more complex by the large carriage door and it shares the same type of window with its neighbour, but the openings have stucco reveals and arched heads which mark the building’s nineteenth century ‘updating’. Part of that ‘updating’ may have also involved the removal of the brick stringcourse between ground and first floors (no.15 on the right still has it) in favour of a stone stringcourse doubling as window cills. The hoods over two of the ground floor windows are additional signs pointing to nineteenth century ‘applied cosmetics’. Even the old brick eaves and stringcourse below are stucco-covered. The very tall and narrow double entrance door has metalwork that in style and execution is similar to that of no.15’s first floor windows. The proportions of carriage door and fanlight are such as to divorce them from the facade while upon the roof, the two dormers still retain their arched window heads but little else of the originals. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623418654946-ZM8818KS6H6RTMVQUNX7/_DSC0104+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623419994775-KADXPRXVA5AF8KBY44KZ/_DSC1812+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 15 Rue des Annonciades has almost identical proportions to no.13 in both height and openings so it may be supposed that 13 and 15 were built within a few years of each other (and note the projecting brick reveals on no.15, covered by stucco on no.13). But 15 has a fine, wide double entrance door and fanlight (of unusual design) with a headstone, plus stone impost blocks and plinths; the two simple and elegant foot scrapers are still present. Eaves cornice and stringcourse below of stone too, but between ground and first floors, the stringcourse is of brick. 17 Rue des Annonciades on the right is rather different in that it has a very high stone plinth and window openings with segmented flat brick arches to the ground floor but arched heads to the first floor. The carved brick projecting eaves under the gutter is very fine. The front door is of a peculiar nineteenth century style we will see elsewhere in Bergues too. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623419804424-ECS42JUX3WA6YNX3M9RT/_DSC1491+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623420576391-KRIDL1YLM3AEH7XO3T0F/_DSC3901+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 4 Rue des Annonciades, back down the hill on the left, is also nineteenth-century, a modest five-bay house with later messing about to the ground floor but it has retained its refined brick doorcase (a rarity in Bergues) and substantial moulded brick cornice under the gutter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623420653867-C616WXU3RZJMCMUF4L0S/_DSC3902+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623421432470-D7KK0XAIRKWXDW0MUIGR/_DSC5805+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …and now retracing our steps back to Rue des Cavaliers and right to head downhill into Rue du Collège… Plan 8 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1629447373551-1PK6EK8BWGJYMP0UMZIO/_DSC7040+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Rue du Collège before the First World War. To look at this street today, you’d think that nothing much has changed and, indeed, that is thankfully true….. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1630932923880-NH2C8ZW5XQ4YE0RVZCJO/_DSC7410+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk ….except, of course, for the beffroi….. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623421100497-FRCMMYSC13VXLP2D0BGG/_DSC2099+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The top half of the Rue du Collège with no.15 on the left Time now to retrace your steps back via the Rue des Cavaliers to arrive again at the top of the Rue du Collège. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623421988701-7Q8W5JENQGFYWO4SVDIA/_DSC2093+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623421904150-3ZAUMGC1AQ5U99RY2D7S/_DSC9801+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 17 Rue du Collège, on the right as we head downhill, is a good one to start with because it may be seen as a typical example of the ‘Bergues house type’. Dated by the wall anchors under the eaves as of 1692, it is two storey, of yellow brick with flat segmental brick arches to the openings (those of the first floor being original), a tiled pitched roof (although the original pantiles have unfortunately been replaced by modern machine-made interlocking tiles) steep enough to permit accommodation within, a painted timber dormer with a pitched roof, the window sitting level with the gutter. The whole façade is entirely symmetrically arranged above a plastered plinth. The shutters are all later additions. You will see more of this type of house but all with their own differences of detail and finish. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623423434501-CO11OGYEYL33I421HUEF/_DSC9803+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 15 Rue du Collège, right next door on the left, aside from being one of the oldest houses in Bergues, is really very interesting indeed. It has bold richly-decorative wall anchors just under the eaves which date the building to 1639. The ground floor timber shutters appeared very old indeed, possibly originals (judging by the hinges) and the front door ironmongery is no less interesting. The door’s fanlight above has old ‘twisted’ timber bars which lie behind glazed frames, unique in Bergues while the door itself is like no other with its strange vertical grooved design, ‘relief’ bottom rail and prismed frame plinths. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623423111987-Q867Q87CHLYZZJJ5UC6Q/_DSC2094+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623668908434-ZBZCSMK0DPAI0Z3JODJT/_DSC1777+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk A bit further down on the same side lies 9 Rue du Collège, which is interesting because it too has an old seventeenth century door opening with a Tudor arch and thick timber frame supporting the infill brickwork. On its right a window opening of same date but with a three-centred arch with modern infill below; the rest of the facade is of later date. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623668708434-2L0E7T5YLF5H7I9XR932/_DSC2096+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623669721536-JUH0PP5HFKWCG3O57HEE/_DSC1779+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Still on the same side, nos. 5 & 7 Rue du Collège are an almost identical mirrored pair which differ from nos. 17 and 15 in that the windows and their intermediate brick panels are both recessed within the facade, an eighteenth century characteristic which is confirmed by the raised brick panels under the first floor windows. Very fine, strong moulded brick cornices to both houses and some late 19th century ornament to no.7’s first floor windows. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623669599033-PKL6VCK7IMLOGGH933B1/_DSC2097+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1630771881448-C7UDD5I4GWYDJQR2JA53/_DSC1782+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk On the left, 14 Rue du Collège, which represents a true eighteenth-century type in that the fashion for plastered façades is here made evident. Also typical, the facade is almost flat, with articulation only provided by slightly-projecting stringcourses and the heavy projecting cornice at the top. The houses of earlier date have much stronger, thicker window frames as they helped with the building’s structural stability but that, by this time, had gone in favour of windows with their frames behind brick rebates but here the traditional ‘cross’ form of window design was retained and the windows are not rebated. The provision of ‘blank’ shutters to the ground-floor windows and louvred to the first floor was also almost de rigueur at the time. Notice too the decorative headstones to the window arches, of which there are many examples in Bergues depicting shells, scrolls or greenery but more commonly sculpted heads with various expressions ranging from the humorous to the unsavoury! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1630771746494-4P9PP9XQOUCKOBD1WDGI/_DSC7107+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623674438296-UA4ZBX1RGS3V2CFUBZ5B/_DSC3916+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623674547377-WRO4ZZ8KFDIEUUKP7P8Z/_DSC1783+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 8 Rue du Collège also on the left is a large six-bay nineteenth century house with a mansard roof containing three pediment-headed dormer windows. The eaves are typical for the date in being formed of a timber box gutter (probably with a zinc lining) sitting on carved timber brackets. Equally typical, the facade plastered to look as if made of stone. What is not typical is the strange bay on the far left of the facade, narrower than the others and with a blind window above a door which is painted to match the hard-to-ignore colour scheme of the next door neighbour. The door looks entirely modern so perhaps there was a blind window here originally? Also odd, the ground floor windows have sculpted-head keystones whereas the first floor windows do not. All the windows are modern, those to the first floor cross windows, those to ground floor ‘T’ windows. The almost-original dormer windows sit very uneasily within the mansard clad with crude machine-made pantiles; slates would be right material here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623682134047-X7DANQFVN2VVMVV1392V/_DSC1786+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk the beffroi was undergoing restoration work in 2019... Finally and a little further on to 4 Rue du Collège, also on the left and today a popular tavern, we return to a seventeenth-century design which has elaborate wall anchors under the eaves that date the building to 1644; those at the lower level are almost equally elaborate but decorative only. The window and door openings are arranged asymmetrically between ground and first floors – not unusual in Bergues – with the left-hand door leading to the first-floor accommodation(?). Both doors are late nineteenth/early twentieth century designs and rather heavy in execution; did the house have just one door originally? The openings have Tudor brick arches on the ground floor and three-centred brick arches on the first floor. All the windows have their original frames. Two painted timber dormers with pitched roofs sit just above a good box gutter, which itself sits on a very fine, moulded brick projecting eaves. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623681855896-BRNTH2N366BUP4RGIBOU/_DSC2098+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623683165431-Q19QBMJB7GL4A3O0HQN2/_DSC1785+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623683079621-3LA630S2ES8X1JEYBRY6/_DSC1784+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Ground floor window Tudor brick arch (above) and first floor window three-centred brick arch. The arches are all composed of moulded bricks and this feature is continued down each of the two window opening jambs. It seems the architect - if there was one - could not resist just a little more brick artistry, in the form of the corbel brick stringcourse running across the top of the window heads and on both floors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623684627023-M6LL16J4V016SF32AH46/_DSC5806+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From the Rue du Collège into Rue Lamartine and along Rue Maurice Cornette to the Marché aux Bestiaux… Plan 9 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623685148477-QAI698EN9ZU20VSKV22O/_DSC0406+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 12 Rue Maurice Cornette was the seat of the deanery of the St Donaas Cathedral in Bruges, a Roman Catholic church which was the largest in the city (until it was destroyed in 1799 with the dissolution of the Diocese of Bruges, a consequence of the French Revolution). The deanery is, not surprisingly given its original owners, richly decorative and is additionally asymmetrical in composition so while it is a contemporary of 15 Rue du Collège (which we saw earlier), it distinguishes itself in the homogeneity of its details – it is certainly more refined. Starting at the top of the facade, the brick dormer window is in itself a tour de force of brick architecture. It sports a stepped gable with moulded stone copings and there are moulded brick ‘ears’ each side, a motif repeated but inverted at cill level. The window is set well back into the opening with not one but two moulded brick reveals and arches to the head with a segmented brick lintol above the window frame head; a steeply-weathered brick cill completes the composition. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623685023150-OQOXNW6NC5NQNNOQXVUD/_DSC0405+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623685404227-R27AVTN3OBEW5NDXBUZI/_DSC0407+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623685548418-UUGHW1V6PDGNMVTOJSOE/_DSC0408+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The deep reveals to the window openings, while indicating massive masonry walls, are really there to provide the opportunity for decoration so as to mark the building’s status compared to lesser neighbours. An interesting detail is that the (modern) window jambs are recessed behind the brick reveals, but the head is left exposed. Was this really how it was originally built? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623686113210-34UJCKW1PRWR9K68MO8V/_DSC0409+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623687313345-H6POY6AY99I49SF8A28N/_DSC1544+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The north side of the Marché aux Bestiaux https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625060703392-ZFNJ4FFOX317WQJTZJ1N/_DSC6795+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The marché in the late nineteenth century. In the distance, the towers of the abbey on the Groenberg. In the middle distance, the old Collège Saint-Winoc before the disastrous fire. The pristine-looking brick walls beyond the last building on the left (with the mansard roof) formed the boundary to the garden of the seminary in the street of the same name. That garden, after the Second World War, would be given over to the rebuilt Collège https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623687492477-VT8YNKY1NMKR8TU108G2/_DSC4240+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623688532696-DOIXJYN0U7IPF1LAJL2H/_DSC2103+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623688702109-K8O10J7T2UXM4PNQ71EX/_DSC1541+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk On the north side, the imposing 13 Marché aux Bestiaux which was the sous-préfecture before Napoleon transferred its responsibilities to Dunkirk as part of a settlement of debts involving the fragrant Josephine. This building is a grand representative of the eighteenth century which exhibits the ‘pilaster facade’ (where the facade is divided vertically by brick pilasters) we have seen replicated in the modern houses on the Groenberg. Here, however, the richness of the architecture is evident in the use of blocked brick pilasters with ionic capitals, which sit on stone plinths, the whole lending a strong vertical emphasis to the facade but this is countered by the pronounced and projecting horizontal stringcourses, also of stone. The openings are quite plain with simple brick segmental arches but crowned with sculpted keystones (see selection below); the first floor shutters are unfortunately absent. The whole composition is capped with a bold projecting eaves, with a strong stone cornice and another stringcourse below. All this is very fine but it is a peculiarity here that, while the two outermost pilasters just keep on going up beyond their capitals to terminate under the gutter, the intermediate pilaster capitals are left in ‘mid-air’ - a most odd mannerism and not unique in Bergues to this building. The foot scrapers and vents to the cellar are worth a look too. And the two dormer windows are glorious! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623749078591-TV8XXW5CQJ5H0PQFERGV/_DSC9433+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Marché aux Bestiaux as seen from the east end with the old weighing house on the left and the Collège Saint-Winoc on the right https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623749670254-PSGPG3JYXZWZ2ICS8TNW/_DSC9435+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk A remarkable survivor…. The protective cordon of bollards and chains around the old weighing house, indicating the town’s desire to preserve from harm this charming if currently rather forlorn remnant of the market’s original business, should be matched by funds to enable its restoration before it descends into further disrepair. On visiting in August 2021, it could be seen that the building had received some emergency repair and another coat of blue paint. But real work is yet to come… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623749263915-BX9GB7N49MUB7DV85CCR/_DSC9434+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623750030380-GW925VH4ZOSS37JUO83K/_DSC2101+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Collège Saint-Winoc; the beautiful tree may just be a survivor from the once lush garden of the seminary… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623751436500-59GVVPEE5VPJOD5C3YPO/_DSC5868+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk In the foreground of this extract from a pre-First World War postcard, the rear of the Séminaire in the street of the same name may be seen with, directly opposite, the original and larger Collège Saint-Winoc before the fire that destroyed it. The site is today occupied by post-war housing on the Rue Pierre Decroo, with the Collège rebuilt on a cleared site south of its original location While the Marché aux Bestiaux has several good buildings, it is unquestionably crowned by the Collège Saint-Winoc, one of the oldest educational establishments north of Paris. It was founded in 1600 by Isabella Clara Eugenia (Philip II’s daughter) and her husband Albert VII of Austria, just two years after the Spanish Netherlands became the Habsburg Netherlands, to which Bergues belonged at the time. The school was run by Jesuits until the Revolution and was famed far and wide for the quality of its education. The Revolution saw the school closed and everything sold with the exception of the buildings, which remained locked up for several years. Educational use returned under the new regime, until on 17 June 1909 a fire swept through the entire complex which within two hours was left a smoking ruin. The building we see today is a 1950s facsimile which captures something of the lost original and forms part of a complex which includes a fine, older building on the Rue du Collège. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623752001322-AMVO6T1AFATEH8A9AX5Q/_DSC0398+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623752736489-XZVTX2TZ0AA1KTDK68Y4/_DSC5807+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From the Marché aux Bestiaux back into Rue Maurice Cornette and then left into Rue Carnot… Plan 10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623760948086-G9ZN0HZVDCU0PYME0KE3/_DSC0442+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The aerial photo taken in 1934 very clearly shows the oval of old streets still present today that trace the outline of the ninth-century castrum. At the core, l’Église Saint-Martin, with the beffroi top right https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623760896122-DCQXVTM255L6ZXFALAA8/_DSC9606+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1633596922148-N3WM5IXT80OAWP3DX2SQ/_DSC7477+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1630773147732-1YBIDL5H1UQSF8UN8D6T/_DSC7072+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The ‘tympanum’ to the ground floor window. Maybe one day all that paint will be removed to permit the sculptor’s art to once again ‘breathe’…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623764304475-UTLBDCVTBN9O0GH68XGT/_DSC9809+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Unique in Bergues…but would it not be good to remove those damn telecommunications and street lighting cables that are a plague on the town’s facades? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623764805088-U0DH8HQKZ3ZBVWQ9WPTN/_DSC0149+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Also on the right, 54 Rue Carnot, a much more traditional design but like no.58, also unique in Bergues. Looking at it, it has all the attributes present in dozens of other houses in Bergues of its time i.e. eighteenth century – brick pilasters (rusticated either side of the central bay and at each end of the façade) with recessed bays, complete with raised decorative brick panels to the first floor window aprons; cross windows; stone plinth; timber shutters; very fine moulded brick projecting eaves. The dormers are very nice too. But it is the surprise of the delightful first floor balcony with double doors featuring gothic glazing bars, with matching fanlight above, together with the extraordinarily delicate wrought iron balustrade sitting on a carved stone base which secures this building’s status as memorable amongst many fine competitors. Splendide! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623765715550-MGEAONNADC0W7LNN7ICQ/_DSC3918+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The dormer windows illustrate how something elegant can be ruined by inappropriate details, in this case the clunky verge tiles applied to the roofs Almost directly opposite, nos. 67-71 Rue Carnot. 67 and 69 are effectively twins, with 71 (above) similar but four-bay instead of three. 69 is, alas, empty and in August 2021, a first floor window’s glass had been shattered. Only a matter of time before the pigeons get in…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623765990071-CKKUXW2ECE1PPHMNILDN/_DSC3919+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Much more modest in scale than, 67 and 69 are late seventeenth century and despite being more typically Berguois, they distinguish themselves via the ornately-carved stone panels forming the first floor window aprons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623766360008-SK8XOY8RQQ895G25TUA6/_DSC1883+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 69 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623766416247-41UYFN2A63J5ZNCWGVQO/_DSC1884+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 67 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623767146803-F2TDEMTEC7C33RLAL2VV/_DSC1885+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Moving on, 65 Rue Carnot next door is unusual in being of three storeys rather than the predominant two. It also has very unfortunate windows in that they are almost the same height to all three storeys, giving the facade a rather ungainly appearance, amplified by the elevated cill height of the ground floor windows and the mean stone plinth. This contrasts with the fine carriage door and stone entablature above which doubles as a barely usable balcony to the first floor. The balcony’s wrought iron balustrade is quite light which, along with many other details such as the rusticated brick columns and rubbed-brick voussoirs to the window heads, dates this house as late eighteenth century. Notice too, the prominent and very elaborate cast iron ‘bollards’ each side of the door. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623767057166-W92TLGGQD0II873HY7WV/_DSC3920+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The two dormers look utterly insignificant on this grand but curiously unsatisfying facade… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623767914065-5HJUTJTJ11PSS1VHMHOB/_DSC3921+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623768013481-E6O8C9MNU3DFBOMGRZU7/_DSC1887+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Right next door, continuing westwards, 63 Rue Carnot. A much more elegant design, its composition is very similar to that of 54 but less exuberant in that there are just four rusticated brick pilasters with just the hint of capitals at the top, so integrated are they with the eaves and stringcourse brickwork. The windows are set simply within the brick wall, with fine rubbed-brick voussoirs to their heads. The windows themselves are (apart from two timber survivors) unfortunately double-glazed aluminium but at least replicate to some effect the timber cross windows that once occupied their place. The fine entrance door and fanlight are surmounted by a timber cornice which is located above the rubbed-brick arch, thereby divorcing it from the door below, a most unusual device. Also unusual, the differing window heights to the ground floor. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623768814267-1YN8AYQ74Y4NY1RMQ7VQ/_DSC1891+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 53 Rue Carnot https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623769032686-72X6TSEJHF75OUWF8FAK/_DSC3922+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623770281732-0MGSF5XZKSN6F58P8E4A/_DSC0155+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk The next house along, 51 Rue Carnot, is another of the type with its entrance door at one end of the façade and its prominence is made more manifest by the comparative simplicity of everything else. It is almost entirely flat, with the windows simply set back within their openings crowned with segmented flat brick arches. Indeed, the only other brickwork to mention is the fine projecting moulded brick cornice at the eaves. As to the door, it is all of a one i.e. it has a doorcase with bases, columns and entablature. The crude bollards in the pavement contrast markedly with the refined originals each end of the threshold… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623770431117-YSZE4FR24XS6JM3CIBJ6/_DSC0155+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The house has some nice details - the door upper panels have nicely carved festoons and the sunburst fanlight is simple and elegant. The dormers are smaller versions of those we saw on the roof of the sous-préfecture in the Marché aux Bestiaux https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623834572141-G0F1FRW3DDPZP7FWA7F3/_DSC9712+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The splendid Rue Carnot with nos. 45-49 in the middle. The archway next to 45 gives access to the old Bastion du Moulin on the Chemin de la Nekerstor, which we talk about in ‘The Fortifications Walk’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623834901385-LSWNNKQ7HIBARCCSPMX9/_DSC3926+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk All three houses share the enormous, multi-layered cornice under the eaves with their equally over-sized attached capitals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623834950417-DTGU1OBK23UBLRDXBZF1/_DSC3925+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 49 and 47 Rue Carnot Still looking at the left-hand side of the street, we come to nos. 45-49 Rue Carnot. Conceived to much the same design as no.53, all three houses were built at the same time. All three are pilaster facades with recessed bays, no.47 having five bays while nos.45 and 49 have three. Perhaps the most distinguishing element of all three is that they have raised ground floors, each entrance door sporting a fine set of stone steps that intrude onto the footpath. The raised floor level, together with the maintenance of the same gutter level as the neighbouring houses, indicates the internal ground floor height as being rather less grand than those of their neighbours. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623835477444-OLCJYDTQHIBKRC172BU0/_DSC1895+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 45 Rue Carnot All three houses have high stone plinths with 45’s the highest; this house also has flat brick arches to the windows instead of arched and there is a wall shrine with a mother and two children sculpture (that doesn’t look to be original) dated 1756, which may or may not be the date of the house. With no.47 the larger of the three houses, one may presume that it was the home of the builder of all three, especially given it is the house with a projecting stone hood over the entrance door, permitting what may have been a wealthy man some additional shelter from the elements. 49 suffers from having received a ‘speckled render’ covering over its stone plinth. Just one other thing. All the windows to 45 are modern and what a shame it is that the mullions in the upper lights - above the transom - are reduced to glazing bars (because the upper lights do not open) and thus the intended replication of the traditional cross-window is compromised by expediency, spoiling the overall appearance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623835281739-A5JEDBRPJ8XCNDLJBZ6H/_DSC3924+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623847654239-NP9KWYUCQGKFNU5GSMPA/_DSC5808+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Continuing along the Rue Carnot, we now take a look at the other side of the street… Plan 11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623837679111-OFV5PXCQ42E3GJR4ZSVG/_DSC9715+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The majestic facades of 40, 42 and 44 Rue Carnot illuminated by Spring sunshine https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623838443817-0RGPKIID2CVHTOOWRR78/_DSC0146+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 42 Rue Carnot Now to the other side of the street, 42 Rue Carnot, a very large herenhuis of nine bays with entrance on the far left in a bay wider than the others. It is another pilaster façade, all brick apart from a very shallow stone plinth at just above footpath level, raised only at the doors. The ground floor windows have flat segmented brick arches whereas the first floor have arched. The roof originally had just two dormer windows and first floor windows originally had shutters too. The two central bay shutters originally had attractive small decorative metalwork grilles inset within them (unfortunately now no longer present) which doubtless permitted those indoors some indication of the temper of the weather outside. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623838535214-PZW4K0FZTR9D4W7ODNLW/_DSC9717+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623839464799-7KVR7XQDEFPBHDNEA6A3/_DSC9817+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk A gloriously rich assembly of fine details in timber, stone, brick and iron form the entrance to 40 Rue Carnot https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623840151144-K5ZBXK818EO0YMSN9LS3/_DSC0145+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623840078223-XY70AM96VZ27SOENCX45/_DSC3929+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 40 Rue Carnot - the tiny cast iron grilles ventilating the void under the ground floor If no.42 were not grand enough, then 40 Rue Carnot next door exceeds it in decoration if not quite in size as it is eight bays wide. This house is of later date with a façade considerably ‘flatter’ – look at the bays, inset ever-so-slightly between pilasters that hardly merit the name, while the brick reveals to the openings are again ever-so-slightly raised beyond the plane of the façade. The moulded brick cornice at the eaves is of very fine workmanship. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623841259380-XHT2YW7GO94RID8Z6ZHW/_DSC0144+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623841699004-CO6YBD7DJU684NOXLXCY/_DSC9819+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Another fabulous entrance to match that of no.40 we’ve just seen but considerably more sober in execution… 34 Rue Carnot further along on the same side is a little smaller still at seven bays but has the same façade arrangement as 51, 42 and 40 in that the entrance is at one end. Here there is nothing clever going on with the sizing of the bays, they are all equal with the entrance arranged to fit within the width of two of them. The facade itself is almost as flat as a board with the windows set back within their openings which have (somewhat crude) segmented brick arch heads on both floors, with plain keystones. The altogether more restrained concept has the entrance door with a fine stone doorcase with a Tuscan entablature and the fanlights below feature the same rather heavy decorative metalwork we’ve already seen elsewhere. The original dormer windows are especially fine with pedimented roofs with little crowns and architraves with ears and volutes to their sides. Superbe! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623844501273-DUU35C7I5F8361NIH8UD/_DSC0142+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623843786903-H1KQRJYA1CABP0792B1M/_DSC3932+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Where’s the balustrade gone? Well, it returned in late 2023 after refurbishment Still on the right-hand side, we come to 22 Rue Carnot. Another very fine herenhuis of eight very generous bays, not much expense was spared designing and building this one and in that context, it is interesting how the street here broadens temporarily, almost as if to permit one to admire this building from a more favourable distance compared to its neighbours! Extensive use is made of stone in the reveals to the openings, the jambs of which extend to provide captured brick panels below; there are cills which extend as stringcourses and at the top of the facade, a fine projecting stone cornice with a dentil course in the manner of the ionic order. The entire façade is contained at each end with rusticated stone pilasters. The roof, in the form of a mansard which in itself clearly dates this building to the late eighteenth or even early nineteenth century, has dormer windows which also have facades made of stone with elaborate carved arched heads sporting very ornate carved keystones, and there are volutes to the architrave bases. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623846654695-TL038ACZZUYB17H1VKW9/_DSC9894+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 21 Rue Carnot on the left and 19 next door on the right, with twentieth-century buildings beyond which regrettably do not have much of the consideration given to others of the same period we have already seen On the opposite side of the street 21 Rue Carnot, a five-bay red brick building with yellow brick detailing which looks to date from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and as such unusual in Bergues. It looks vaguely industrial rather than domestic with its small first floor windows, prominent Italianate yellow brick frieze below the eaves and shuttered dormers; the yellow brick stringcourse at first floor mid-height feels all wrong. 19 Rue Carnot next door, on the other hand, could not provide a greater contrast, unashamedly neo-classical with an all-stucco façade, heavy eaves cornice with prominent dentil course, nicely detailed mansard roof and two very fine dormer windows with carved timber surrounds. And again, some really fine metal grilles to the cellar. For the remainder of the Rue Carnot, there is nothing much to see with, on the left, more post-war housing of the type we have seen earlier on the walk e.g. no.13 but of somewhat lesser design quality. Directly opposite this, no.14 represents a thankfully rare error of judgement in that it is a nondescript three-storey block of flats that not only contributes nothing to the street but also inappropriately breaks with the street’s predominant harmony i.e. two storey with a pitched roof. Salutory in displaying what one shouldn’t build in a street of this quality. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623847922791-DGYN24H178K5LRE2QX5I/_DSC5809+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Having now reached the end of Rue Carnot, we’re about to enter Rue Faidherbe but first a diversion along the Rue de la Gare on the right, followed by a second later diversion along the Rue de l’Arsenal… Plan 12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623848606515-4CK3ZD9N57VH5M72MU1Z/_DSC9707+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk the dormers could probably do with some attention… Turn right into Rue de la Gare (previously known as Rue de la Grande Citerne because it led to the reservoir of that name - we will see it later on the walk) and barely 30 metres down the street you come across 24 Rue de la Gare on the left, a very fine large eighteenth century house with six bays, all with brick-arched openings and cross windows; the window reveals are all raised slightly proud of the facade and the windows themselves have the glazing bars rarely found on houses of this and earlier date that have survived to today. The coach entrance stands proud with rusticated segmented-brick arch and rusticated brick jambs and the doors are elegant in their simplicity but the fanlight above feels rather mean. The exterior has been handsomely restored with reinstated first floor shutters. Opposite this building is the Centre d’Incendie et de Secours (Fire Brigade), the site of which has been recently ‘reclassified’ so as to permit redevelopment as housing (which may mean the extension of the adjacent Maison de Famille Saint-Agustin, a retirement home). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623848329199-79LAJ0OVB0RLU2IG6FGN/_DSC3934+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623849323721-J7BW75DE5VRF2WTT53XG/_DSC3490+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The now defunct proposal for a new public park on the Ancienne Gendarmerie site would have transformed the area with extensive landscaping, a ‘themed garden’, playspace and a new setting for the existing and retained building. The proposal may well have provided a fine backdrop to the old barracks on the south side too, but new housing on the site is now proposed instead… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623849273647-3D5Q5NB1VJ3DO12J4R8I/_DSC3936+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Retrace your steps back to the junction, turn right and then first left to enter Rue de l’Arsenal and walk up to Rue Saint-Georges. In front of you and looking west, you’ll see a large three-storey pitched-roof building dating from 1963, standing alone and empty, on the periphery of a large (6500m²) derelict site behind it. Owned by the State, this is the site of the Ancienne Gendarmerie (The Old Police Station; the police moved out in 2008, relocating to nearby Hoymille), recently also ‘reclassified’ as suitable for housing (there was an earlier plan for converting the site into a public park). It will be very interesting to see the proposals for redevelopment comprising some 50 homes (including the rehabilitation of the 1963 building), not just because of the critical consideration of the site being within the town walls, but also the location right next to the old caserne (barracks) to the south. In 2020, archaeological investigation had revealed the remains of the Dominican convent that once existed here. It is to be hoped that Bergues will not end up with a larger version of the new housing development proposed for the La Presqu’ile area (which we’ll come to later on, should you be interested to know why I sound a note of foreboding). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623850002715-3Q4RA68023QUYVTM4TO1/_DSC5810+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Now for the Rue Faidherbe, heading east along the perimeter of the ancient castrum… Plan 13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623850317431-6NGVU1FPM46IYEMMBLTH/_DSC9882+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Returning to the Rue Faidherbe (1818-89, Louis Léon César Faidherbe was a French General and colonial administrator whose link with Bergues is twofold, first that he was a leading commander in the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s and active in the Nord area in fighting the Prussians and, second, he was later elected to the senate of the Département du Nord, a seat he resigned in 1888), you are presented with a very fine view indeed if you look northwards, the direction we are to take. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623850623796-CXH1FAEG1X9FUBJUQUJS/_DSC9880+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623851447931-ZBPO27SJU5WDJJY02FGR/_DSC9827+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623851929586-I0UR8AHFE8JPE3WMLM3P/_DSC9876+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk We now turn our attention to the left side of the street, starting with 19 Rue Faidherbe. This very grand building is again rather different from all those we’ve seen so far in that it is of the nineteenth century, the most notable indication of this being the ‘T’ windows as well as a facade almost entirely of stucco. Of two storeys with a third within a mansard roof (with four original windows with pedimented gables), there are eight bays in three groups comprising the two left of the entrance (group 1), the entrance (2) and the five bays to the right of the entrance (3). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623851781298-HFVLP0TGWBS5Z21MG0TB/_DSC0132+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk The main facade is highly decorated. At the eaves, a projecting timber cornice with supporting brackets within a frieze that sits on top of the window heads. Between the architraves to the windows, plain stucco panels with a perimeter moulding. The first floor window cills are amalgamated within a stringcourse that tops a decorative band running the full length of the building, broken only by the balcony balustrade which retains the same height but abandons the medallions and panels in favour of classical balusters; the balcony is supported by large modillions. The ground floor window architraves are shouldered with little medallions within. The window cills are also amalgamated to form a dado rail, below which is a waist panel subdivided to look like coursed stone with the cellar openings picked out. The whole facade sits on a real stone plinth and is contained at each end by pilasters with rustication to the ground floor and columns to the first floor. No hint of modesty here but refinement, certainly. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624006629939-I1IIC0EV2QMGV4AKNBP1/_DSC9878+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624006540343-P5ICASFHVPEIHHAPHD9D/_DSC9874+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 21 Rue Faidherbe next door has a similarly relaxed composition to that of no.13, in that the horizontal dominates, making it look a little subservient compared to its grander neighbours. This impression is aided by the height of both ground and first floor windows being the same (all the windows are modern and the bars fitted to the first floor openings are unfortunate). A high stone plinth forms the base, necessitating a set of steps to reach the well-proportioned entrance door and superb fanlight. The facade is surmounted by a large, overly top-heavy cornice and box gutter while of the dormers it appears the two taller may be the originals with ‘one size fits all’ windows, unfortunately altering their proportions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624007993199-L1KYILGB37XK3B1N0Y2L/_DSC3938+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 22 Rue Faidherbe https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624008415540-WA3XL4WE6XHV5IU5PIUS/_DSC3937+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624008213435-CJ483B6J89JCXYG72FF6/_DSC9829+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 22 Rue Faidherbe on the opposite side of the street could not be more different in comparison. It is a pilastre maison of the late eighteenth century with many of the characteristics we’ve seen on other houses from this period. But there are two distinguishing elements, the first being the fine stone doorcase of a Tuscan order with the door and frame within being original; and the second the combined eaves cornice and frieze under, all in brick, complete with capitals and seen as a whole, almost too much for the facade to handle. Extraordinary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624016302808-AER05CFER6TJ4P0GFH6Q/_DSC0130+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624016030836-LLTYPFVG6OWYSF6FMWEN/_DSC9872+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Back to the other side and 23 Rue Faidherbe. Different again! The accentuation of the vertical in this again eighteenth century house is very pronounced, made even more so by the comparatively narrow frontage. This has been mitigated somewhat by the extra-high stone plinth on which everything sits, necessitating a tricky, steep flight of steps to the front door. The bay in which the door sits is narrower than the other two but otherwise they share the same details – curved arch heads to the openings, rusticated pilasters the full facade height sitting on the plinth and with Ionic capitals in much the same location as those we’ve seen on no.13 Marché aux Bestiaux i.e. stopped short of the eaves with no frieze to belong to, with lesser capitals under the cornice. Most odd. The large overhanging cornice effectively caps the facade although one wonders if it's the original, given that everything above the eaves is modern apart from the chimney stacks and, possibly, the roof structure. The projecting stone cills to the first floor windows are typical of their time, complete with rounded rather than square arrises. And just look at that extraordinary cellar vent! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624027126650-Z3WS1246PNBGA9QUO6KI/_DSC9869+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Next door, 25 Rue Faidherbe, a nine-bay building which has much in common with the séminaire we saw earlier in the street of the same name. That building is nineteenth century and no.25 here is too, built in 1860. And it is the site of the former Sisters of the Sacré-Cœur foundation – if you look at the pediment above, you’ll see their symbol in the form of two sculpted hearts. The architectural details of the two buildings certainly almost match – they’re of brick, the entrance bay is central, the windows all have slightly-projecting brick reveals and curved segmental-brick arches. But the cills of no.25 are of stone, not brick and the brick ‘frame’ to the openings is carried under the cills too, so the detailing is a little busier and richer than the leaner séminaire. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624026939782-OEC8RJZKBLXE0NG9CB79/_DSC9884+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624027303688-KIWCD6LYMQ6MNL31IPBC/_DSC5811+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From Rue Faidherbe we walk into Rue Nationale, past the mini-roundabout and on to Place Gambetta where we turn left to go into Rue des Capucins where we take a detour right into Rue Jean Mermoz… Plan 14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624027764428-BJJCH2F5MB3HV0RNDN3R/_DSC9918+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 19 Rue Jean Mermoz, just a few steps along on the right, is unique in Bergues. Known locally as the Maison Espagnole, it is dated 1695 (on the stone set in the brickwork under the first floor window arch, but some believe the building to be older), is two-storey and another building of this time to display an asymmetric composition to the facade. What dominates, however, is the first-floor trapgevel (stepped gable) and the large window within it which looks original, complete with leaded lights. No.19 has been restored to within an inch of its life - I’m not sure about the metalwork in front of the first floor window cill (although it is inoffensive) or the shutters to the same window; the front door is a fair attempt at what might have once been there but it is too tall; the awful machine-made roof tiles are wholly unsympathetic; the red-and-grey decorations too loud and an opening for a garage door cannot be trusted to date from the seventeenth century! And that awful black paving slab plinth… But, as I said, this house is unique in Bergues and if anything, reminds me of similar houses in East Flanders towns in Belgium. So I’d suggest the inspiration for no.19 comes from there, which may explain why it is a ‘one off import’ in Bergues. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624028117855-1DP05TQO5F16F8U3G1T2/_DSC9916+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624028797423-V782HAF4OKB3Q2P4IX8K/_DSC9911+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Rue Jean Mermoz additionally has something unusual in the form of the complex of buildings on its south-east corner, represented in the street by what might be a house with a front door and two garage entrances, flanked on one side by a blank brick wall and on the other with a brick wall of blind openings, all of it obviously conceived to guard privacy. If you walk to the end of the street and turn left, you’ll see more of this strange ‘estate’… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624030938363-YMNKSMR6GUEOV01DWTN7/_DSC9908+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …picturesque it certainly is but also un peu bizarre… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624187449289-7J7PFQETCKCATP6NA9NI/_DSC1999+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Apparently, this little basin, today dry and full of flowers, was in fact a point of sale for the flower sellers whose product came from farmers in nearby Hoymille and was known as L’écluse la Jardinière. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624029800734-MC5RFUXV9IFGJSJ2HDNG/_DSC2005+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Retrace your steps back to Rue des Capucins and right to Rue du Coq where we turn left and walk on with, on our right, a pretty - if somewhat ramshackle - group of houses set back from the street. You’ll see up ahead, at the north end of that terrace, an arch at a lower level, through which one can walk under the town wall. This arch was once part of a canal which ran under the town’s streets, part of which is still existent today (its most visible point being the tunnel mouth entrance at the base of the Nekerstor over on the west side of the town, which we’ll see in ‘The Fortifications Walk’) and whose east entrance was here, beside the Porte de Hondschoote. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624187604291-N2ZDAR5S5Y0WC6X1R5R5/_DSC1995+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Just off the Rue du Coq, on the west side, is the Rue Espagnole where the old watercourse just mentioned once ran in the middle of the street. There’s another very nice seventeenth-century house on the corner of this street with Rue des Poitiers, no.28, with a fine gable end facade with stepped parapet, a slate roof and two fine dormers. All the window openings have three-centred arches with brick cills on the ground floor and - oddly - timber cills to the first floor. All the windows have been renewed to more-or-less match the true ‘cross’ windows of the building’s date in that they have glazing bars, but the frames are rather less sturdy than their original counterparts would have been. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624031142491-O69JF4JAGA366US72EUW/_DSC9926+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624265166700-JSIOI82XM9H8SS7ZV0XI/_DSC5812+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From Rue du Coq and past the Porte de Hondschoote to Place du Marché aux Fromages… Plan 15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624096712199-QIF60ABT6YBY4JT8XIB2/_DSC2197+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 2 Rue de Hondschoote https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624099761260-41WLHKEAFWAEGJRPXCFH/_DSC9931+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624099689707-4AZHL3038NAPMITFKNVE/_DSC9934+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Right next to 2 Rue de Hondschoote on the east side is the basin that gave entry to Bergues from the Colme; the old sluice gates lie open now, decayed and decaying, as no canal traffic exists here anymore. It is to be hoped that these typical examples of canal infrastructure will receive interested and expert attention, before what remains becomes irreparable… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624187848981-Q4OW22SEVC86ATLROUKQ/_DSC2446%2B%25282%2529.jpg The Town Walk Right beside the basin, on the north side, is another of Bergues’s fine brick buildings, l’Abattoir, which dates from 1909-10 and is a rebuild of an earlier building dating from 1811. A long, narrow rectangle in plan, it is of eleven bays, each with a lunette-headed metal window with decorative transom typical of the time (indeed, they look like the cast-iron lintels you see to openings of industrial buildings of this period in the region), with two raised brick panels to the aprons below each opening. Apart from some inappropriate repairs to the brickwork using the wrong colour brick, the walls look remarkably homogenous and in their varying tone and condition, reflect what they’ve experienced over the decades. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624188558663-83CGB30FB18PZW8CKS4T/_DSC1992+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624188254871-E4TX9G11FEOCREO101YD/_DSC2008+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The entire elevation is rusticated in Renaissance style, including the entrance with a fine pedimented doorcase with blocked brick pilasters, once again spoiled only by all those damned cables (do they really have to be there?). The roof is interesting in that it is the same width along the entire building length but the wall underneath follows a different line, so that at the east end it barely covers the brick cornice while at the west end there is a good eaves overhang. This is likely because the roof trusses are iron and all the same span, whereas the walls they sit on are not parallel to each other, causing the overhang. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624189073907-3PQ5BA8RYLN27608Z5UX/_DSC4192+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624635161094-VZL8LLT456VGH2HRJDMC/_DSC2200+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Standing by the entrance to l’Abattoir with the bridge of same name beside us, we see before us the Place du Marché aux Fromages (Cheese Market) on the right (north) side with the canal known as the Bras de Décharge de la Haute Colme (literally, the ‘Haute Colme Unloading Arm’) that links the Basse Colme (which ends at the sluice just north of the Porte de Hondschoote) and Haute Colme (over at the north-west corner of the town) in a deep trench. The place now unfortunately no longer serves the tastes of the Berguois in cheeses but instead serves the motor car, while the trees and green areas you see did not exist when the bras was busy with barges depositing and taking on cargo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624275180635-MTECV040L78ISBSIFES8/_DSC2212+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk There are a few fair houses on the place (e.g. 21 and 25) and on the left in the Rue des Maçons an unusual-for-Bergues busy nineteenth-century red brick house, no.4, a building type far more common in other towns in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region. No.33 beside the l’Abattoir, also of red brick and of similar date, provides no competition. But the place and the rue on the other side distinguish themselves not with their architecture which is undeniably unremarkable, apart from l’Abattoir, but instead via the canal and the strip of landscaping forming a small park, with some lovely mature trees and an especially fine weeping willow. As you walk along the place, the road takes you gently to the right and on your right you’ll see a post-war building with gates alongside and a large yard beyond… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624273956368-50GRE6YFJOOY4ZUFXKF1/_DSC8907+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624266778670-6QFD9MYRCTWZ2R9E5G6Z/_DSC9602+%283%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624280375064-BZ2XMJV0Y6QPY2CJXIWC/_DSC3531+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk This website is largely adulatory of the built heritage of Bergues but looking at the ‘artist’s impression’, one’s heart sinks on realizing the lack of ambition displayed in these new buildings’ design. Architectural aspiration has been set extraordinarily low as this type of mass housing can be found anywhere in the Nord region (and beyond) and represents little more than the cheapest possible provision. There is no attempt whatsoever to integrate the new buildings into the historic centre and there appear to be acres of car parking to the exclusion of any green spaces; there even appear to be no gardens for the homes! This is not building for Bergues – it is building for anywhere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624280310557-MXX3P6H3T783JY3I9ZXU/_DSC3489+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The approved plan for La Presqu’ile redevelopment site. With the GDF buildings demolished (and, somewhat absurdly, the existing office retained), the new buildings (in purple) occupy the central space - see the CGI above right. Alongside the new buildings, it’s proposed to provide new paving to the Marché (will the little park be swept away?) as well as to the area in front of the Ancienne Poudrière. It is not clear if the two landscaped areas are public or private. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624287490388-49VHOVX8NT8KTC3K7W48/_DSC2437+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Continuing ‘The Town Walk’ through the place leads us west to the next bridge, the Pont Saint-Jean at the junction with Rue du Quai on your right. On the right in the photo above, no.3, which is an example of a modern (1994) house which tries, at least partially successfully, to reflect something of the style Berguois and in doing so, providing a semi-worthy neighbour to the splendid and ancient no.1 to its left. Even if it has nothing to do with the fine five-bay house that once stood in its place, lost in the last war. Given that something much worse could have been built, I suggest that in this case the decision to ‘rebuild’ was a sensible one. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624287677416-R3LFMSKAU56816KOXGPF/_DSC2206+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The little narrow-frontage building directly next door on the right, decked out to look like an integral part of ‘Le Bruegel’, was in fact a house in its own right (and of later date) but has for centuries been an integral ‘annexe’. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624288446630-ITOGZSM5P6BV64JIA4SU/_DSC9855+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The stand-out building next to the bridge is 1 Place du Marché aux Fromages, ‘Le Bruegel’. It is the oldest, dated building in Bergues with its wall anchors stating 1597 and was therefore built during the time of the Spanish occupation but, to look at it, you wouldn’t know it; nothing about its style and execution refers to Spain at all. No, it is in the local ‘Flemish Renaissance’ style we’ve already seen a few examples of, with its three storeys, the uppermost within a very steeply-pitched roof; segmented brick arches to ground floor openings and three-centred arches to the upper floor openings; brick dormer windows with, in this case, diaper-pattern brickwork to their gables; a projecting eaves with what appear to be brick brackets under; big, thickset timber ‘cross’ windows (modern but with the right proportions and correct glazing bars); and an asymmetrical composition between ground and upper floors. If I had to complain about anything here, it would be the powder-blue paint (too bright) and the machine-made blue glazed pantiles (completely out-of-character) but there’s no doubting this building’s splendour. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624359028441-H4HQSU7URB5EFQ1LQ1FD/_DSC5813+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From ‘le Bruegel’ and the Pont Saint-Jean along the Rue du Port to Porte de Dunkerque, where we do a ‘U’ turn along the Quai de la Manutention to turn right at Rue du Pont Saint-Jean… Plan 16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624359577426-V40H8DQQ2R9UYIA439W9/_DSC2413+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Rue du Port At this point and looking west along the canal, you’re looking at the Rue du Port on the right and the Quai de la Manutention (the ‘handling quay’) on the left. You will have noticed as you walked along the Place du Marché aux Fromages the mixture of domestic buildings and the vestige of commercial on both sides of the canal and this applies here too, but not in such great measure, to Rue du Port and Quai de la Manutention. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624360215699-WY3UI62O83E593BQP680/_DSC2216+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 7 Quai de la Manutention https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624360985124-KT8MPGVQCRECHJULC8JK/_DSC2230+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 1 Rue Saint-Georges https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624361161806-PU6DRJ64EA2IE494F10J/_DSC1971+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624378282710-LXGL89MUJ9R31SYGZO4V/_DSC1965+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624379105540-KAU0WJT99F9PJOY55BBO/_DSC1977+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Then we see the first house that stands out from the crowd, 34 Rue du Port, a fine eighteenth-century two-storey brick façade sitting on a high coursed-stone plinth (the two little basement lights are nicely considered). The first-floor window arches are of very fine rubbed bricks whereas their equivalents to the ground-floor are positively crude in comparison - and what about that ‘all at sea’ wavy brickwork just above those arches, which have cut into the raised brick panels? It has to be post-war repair, a suspicion furthered by the front door with just a course of header bricks following the curve of the arch and then three or four brickcourses on top laid in a rough-and-ready Flemish bond; all a bit of a car crash. The thin, precast concrete cills don’t look right either. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624379032994-GDV0GJ5OYFGL552D284K/_DSC1964+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624619384924-9TIVZRXF8ZOGBRXVWLS2/_DSC9848+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Rue du Port with 42 the joker in the pack… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624616289233-7WWO7798FSIZ1LXQ01Y7/_DSC1967+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 42 Rue du Port https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624616190313-KJGTPLOD869XT672EYPM/_DSC1979+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Further along, no.42, a thankfully rare example in Bergues of very unfortunate decisions. Despite the brilliant yellow brick and bizarre mosaic tile of the walls, it is another 1950s ‘one off’ design for all that. One does wonder what exactly we’re looking at here, given that the roof is typically Berguois and with its uneven ridge line and slope could be taken for a roof much older than the facade we’re confronted with. So, is the facade just that, hiding a much older structure behind? That roof comes complete with a weak eaves and puny eaves brackets, not unusual on a facade of this date. For the rest, the long strip of a first floor window opening stretching almost the entire width of the facade, the thin projecting precast stringcourse at first floor level, the narrow inset front door….all of its time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624621827460-G9BEW48NNNUFT7U48B8I/_DSC1998+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 17 Rue de Hondschoote, an ex-taverne or estaminet Still walking westwards, we now cannot fail to notice no.48, La Taverne Vauban, which looks to be constantly partying. Much altered, it is of little interest architecturally but is a reminder of Bergues’s important status, in decades past, as a major agricultural centre. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624622002671-M40K4X3MXWGW8XJH6A0J/_DSC1968+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624624837138-4IH4W4L7B9R9MA3KIQJ6/_DSC5814+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Leaving La Presqu’ile we take Rue du Pont Saint-Jean to cross the Rue Nationale and into Rue du Mont de Piété…. Plan 17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624628589528-H3PSIHA4INDLC4FPE7QV/_DSC2232+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Mont de Piété means ‘Bank of Pity’, effectively a public pawnshop, the origin being the Italian monte di pietà which was founded in the fifteenth century as an organised charity, intended as a reform against unscrupulous money lending. This was an attempt by the Church to counter the activities of the banks of the time who charged very high interest rates. The founder of some fifteen of these institutions in the Spanish Netherlands was a certain Wenceslas Cobergher (1557-1634). Born in Antwerp, Cobergher was a man of many talents – painter, engineer, economist, architect – and, like many of his compatriots, studied in Italy and as such, returned ‘italianised’. His architectural work was sparse (the most notable probably being the Basilica of Notre-Dame of 1609 at Scherpenheuvel, one of the first Baroque buildings in Flanders, with an enormous dome that can be seen from miles around) but of what he did, he exhibited a clear interest in Renaissance and Baroque styles. The Mont de Piété in Bergues was built 1629-33 and is a very rich and complex mixture of those two architectural styles with added Flemish – and indeed, Berguois - elements. Comprising two very tall brick storeys and a further two storeys within the steep pitched roof (as well as a basement), the north and south facades contrast markedly with the east and west, while the east and west contrast markedly with each other. Standing in front of the east street facade, the first floor openings have sculpted cartouches planted on their relieving arches, each with a letter which over the length of the facade spells the building’s name in Latin. We also see how each of the twelve bays is arranged to have deep-set openings ‘framed’ by lightly-projecting pilasters, aprons and arches. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624636583595-OB4F2Q7CR0H4DUHSJN07/_DSC1925+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Unsurprisingly, the east (street) elevation has the greater share of the artistry employed. The twelve bays alternate with each other, so bays 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 have first floor window openings with curved segmented brick arches and stone hoodmoulds, with segmented brick relieving arch under, while the ground floor windows have flat segmented brick arches with infilled broken pediment and stone hoodmoulds above… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624636691083-8ULRF2K6PFKT4AUH61E9/_DSC1926+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624637214729-L92OKA4BW5X83AAC0PZ7/_DSC1927+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624637130333-BQYPBCNG7FT14ZVWJD9M/_DSC1928+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …and the even-numbered bays have something of the opposite with first floor windows sporting pointed brick arches and stone hoodmoulds (with flat segmented brick relieving lintol under) while the ground floor windows match their odd-numbered neighbours except for having a kind of infilled swan-neck pediment above the flat segmented brick arch. All the ground floor window heads have oversize keystones. You may think the scroll motifs trapped within the pediments are all the same, but they’re not… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624636435503-J8FQZ1LBMNNLXEW24ADC/_DSC1907+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The west (garden) elevation follows that of the east facade in its composition but is markedly simpler of detail. The idea of alternating bays across the facade is present here too, with the same alternating configuration of pointed and arched openings but with all first floor arches sporting just a sculpted keystone to the arch itself (i.e. not including the relieving arch under), while all ground floor arches include the east elevation elements of enormous keystones with stone hoodmoulds, the former extended to include the flat arch under. Additional architectural elements comprise projecting stringcourses, wrought iron anchors and the stone plinth on which the building sits. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624636351751-QKYE9VS9K28TEU2YOVRB/_DSC1906+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624705714610-DJXLGLZKC5QKRGKDCHI1/_DSC1909+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624705598477-783C6GMUVPMOVWBZ4O2Z/_DSC1905+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The roof to the Mont de Piété is a tour-de-force in itself. Its perimeter is marked by a fine moulded brick cornice with a correspondingly unsatisfactory spindly half-round gutter. The steep roof pitches on both sides, containing two floors within, are finished in slate and have very large timber dormer windows. The dormers we see today are not the originals, lost during the Second World War; their present-day replacements are both more numerous and larger. The thinking must have been to make the attic storeys more usable by permitting the entry of more light. Those to the seond floor are the largest and follow the traditional cross window design but with arched heads, capped with slate-covered pitched roofs. The third floor dormers follow the same basic design but an interesting distinction is that their shutters rise the full window height, whereas those to their cousins below rise only to the transom, with the upper leaded lights served by shutters mounted internally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624707727160-1DWOIQ9506MM8XT4VF0W/_DSC2235+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624717720720-2Y4B251YXW42R674VRIX/_DSC9700+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Square Sapelier, a lovely garden with fine railings on the west side which - along with proposed improvement and repair to the building it serves - equally merits attention to improve its aspect https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624718515656-5M3N2UCDGJW7LVBBIILY/_DSC9693+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Finally, there is the wonderful garden at the back, the Square Sapelier looking rather unloved; this is also a terrible shame as this is such a beautiful space. It is named Square Sapelier after Louis Sapelier (1912-1930) who was once mayor of Bergues. Surely, the delightful little building in the south-west corner (a former fire station) could be refurbished to become the museum’s ‘pop-up’ summer season café/bookshop, with associated tables, chairs and parasols? Perhaps for music performances too? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624718670416-0QKO8MIZP12TAMTH8PY1/_DSC9681+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624719879421-GTNUM2JV4HJ0BV2Z3VZZ/_DSC1421+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Saint-Martin prior to the First World War And so to the second-largest building in Bergues, l’Eglise Saint-Martin. Baudouin le Chauve (‘Baldwin the Bald’, Baldwin II), the second Count of Flanders, founded the church in 900 and it was probably built of cob (a mixture of soil, straw, water and sometimes lime or clay) with a thatch roof. Stone and brick construction arrived in the eleventh century but repeated invasion and consequent destruction of Bergues meant that nothing of early days would remain. Philip II was instrumental in providing the funds for the church which, while taking several decades to build, grew into a building with tower, transepts, nave and aisles i.e. a classic Flemish hall church, completed in 1594. The Revolution saw many of the church’s valuables stolen and a plan to transfer the bells of the Abbey of Saint-Winoc to Saint-Martin fell through due to lack of funds (it was thought that the bells of the abbey sounded better than those of Saint-Martin). After closure of the church, it was repaired and reopened as a ‘Temple of Reason’. In 1897, a new porch in Flamboyant style was built on the east side in celebration of the millennium of Saint-Winoc. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624719807597-D89VDMHVRANIL0SPH4YW/_DSC3418+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624720225691-CGPM6BG0UNT3UDHGVITG/_DSC1439+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The Second World War saw the destruction of the church in almost its entirety, starting in May 1940 when the sacristy was set on fire by the invading Germans but this was nothing in comparison to the destruction meted out on their departure. With little of the original building still standing thanks to aerial bombardment and the majority of its riches already destroyed, the Germans dynamited the tower, presumably to prevent its use as an observation post. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624722265322-VJGIL0756XXAR2XAYL6T/_DSC9588+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624722839567-U2W2QRQLDHZXBOA2DO5J/_DSC1954+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624722995223-2LALU8B44W6K2TMFWLWS/_DSC1955+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Parts of the south walls were able to be retained and repaired, together with their unmistakably Flemish window tracery But the other interesting aspect is that of memory. Those few elements of the old church that could be retained as part of the new, were in fact kept. So it is that the skeletal remains of the open-air north-east apse still stand today as the most poignant reminder of what was lost. And with the retention of a few original columns inside and some brick vaulting, plus parts of the south transept and the other two east apses, the combination of the new with the old ensures we never forget what is manifest almost everywhere in this part of France, the terrible legacy of two World Wars. The remains of the seventeenth century north-east apse contrast with the modern tower https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624723540093-R449VAYBHNHIVJ4FCUG1/_DSC1939+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk Simple and robust detailing of the new Saint-Martin reflects the time during which it was built, when the Church engaged in a return to first principles based upon the liturgy and in that sense, viewed the modern architectural maxim ‘form follows function’ as meaningful to its needs and condusive to the construction of new churches ‘for the people of our times’ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624723415629-N83GBPV9Y524S6536PSW/_DSC1960+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624873491031-43X2A82LDYCGF4ZZI12H/_DSC5815+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk From Saint-Martin and via the Citerne Militaire and the War Memorial into Rue Saint-Victor… Plan 18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624874552950-LZ8PO2GANTL00M1O6ZJD/_DSC2241+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk You may have noticed something odd on the south-west corner of the square, a single-storey stone block with a stair tower on the east side. This is the Citerne Militaire, a military reservoir. It was built in 1724 on land belonging to another religious establishment, l’Abbaye Saint-Victor (founded within the town’s ramparts in the fourteenth century, it was destroyed during the Revolution), to serve as the town’s water supply in case of siege. It once had a large roof covering the entire building, lost in a fire caused by the bombardments of 1940. The water within came from rainwater harvested from the roofs of Saint-Martin, Saint-Victor, the Mont de Piété and the Caserne (barracks) in the Rue de la Gare. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624874242343-PCWSG6ZRAOTLUHGZ5UFN/_DSC6787+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624875361611-WQHO52TE1C2Q36T27DOY/_DSC1940+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624875063276-7AQCSUIWEOZRXQRVDDMP/_DSC2239+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk The War Memorial opposite Saint-Martin, together with a happy survivor of both wars in the fine seventeenth century gable end of 18 Rue de la Gare https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624875893550-PMYBNC1KD5PJUVYNF6W4/_DSC5816+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk …and through the Place Saint-Victor into Rue du Marché du Lin and we’re back where we started our walk Plan 19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624876868570-PQQJ30C243862YNV1GAF/_DSC0233+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk 3 Rue du Marché du Lin is another fine example of post-war rebuilding If we walk through the square heading east, you will enter the Marché du Lin, another street completely rebuilt after the last war, and you’ll then arrive back at the Place de la République where the temptations of food and drink await us! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624876827271-4QGKTUL9GEOHB67Q40F7/_DSC0230+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk If we now take the Rue Saint-Victor you will come into the Place Saint-Victor, a small square full of trees which used to be part of the garden belonging to l’Abbaye Saint-Victor. The square as we see it today was laid out by Auguste Outters in 1860; you may remember him as the architect of the town hall. In the middle of the square, a cast-iron statue of the Three Graces who are said to represent youth/beauty (Thalia), mirth (Euphrosyne), and elegance (Aglaea) standing on top of a Fontaine Wallace. These public drinking fountains were financed by the Englishman Sir Richard Wallace, a somewhat eccentric individual who devoted a small part of his considerable fortune to the provision of these fountains in Paris, after the Franco-Prussian War had destroyed the city’s water supply and left the poor having to pay for water. Sir Richard decided this was not to be and Paris still has many of these fountains on its streets and squares, many considerably larger and more ornate than that you see here in Bergues. The square feels rather neglected, with the fontaine damaged, and although the trees arranged in a loose circle are fine enough, we’ve yet to see anyone sitting here… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1624876594844-FURIG4YD5VFXV3KZK91A/_DSC0236+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk We hope you have enjoyed ‘The Town Walk’, discovering many of the buildings, streets and squares that make Bergues such a special place. Once refortified, you could turn your attention to the town’s fortifications, described in the ‘The Fortifications Walk’ page on this website! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/fc04fadd-2b46-43aa-9250-b778e75d2ef2/_DSC1787+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/9a9bf38b-c7d8-4c93-8f24-48d7ed7d51e6/_DSC2176+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/3ad9f56e-8eb6-4dea-ae1c-ad17d932fa30/_DSC2027+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/b6d6d6b8-cb5f-4e63-a04c-b29a200f8ff7/_DSC1773+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/e082fabe-3a5b-4c89-be2f-ff3d73eacaf3/_DSC9731+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/b3e6514b-5f52-47b8-8d96-6c810bd297ed/_DSC9735+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/eff7f41f-95af-4b93-a08c-6d021d109428/_DSC1933+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/4ee2797d-71c9-4b27-b787-345997ba3322/_DSC7414+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/951f9e12-ee4d-460b-959a-5fe70dd46b32/_DSC7423+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/40a0bb39-0a08-4cfc-b18e-8faa1dd613dd/_DSC1791+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/dc366d8c-fd65-4de5-8e01-481006c1682b/_DSC2171+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/dea53f5c-ec75-47a4-b7e2-43542bffb4fe/_DSC2028+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/5bd8caaa-4783-4c5e-8dbf-fbad0a83be15/_DSC1774+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/f53e26b0-1599-4222-bafb-21501a71a4a4/_DSC9733+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/279efb0b-b297-47b4-80ef-77b89c2df94a/_DSC9729+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/ba064751-d5db-4f0e-acc7-aaaee4aa0fba/_DSC1931+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/03866528-cdb2-4cd4-aa8a-91120d7c7861/_DSC7415+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/b8784cb2-9294-4be0-b80d-38459ce5f666/_DSC7428+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/128dd385-46a7-4202-875a-b6df37368f16/_DSC1789+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/8a62a800-d964-4787-a676-dc14966f620f/_DSC2180+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/6a2daba9-9b5d-41db-9323-7f0e3f8d701e/_DSC2029+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/d5761f1d-b489-4936-bcea-cc36517335df/_DSC1878.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/dd37ef0f-78db-45c3-960b-38ae3e1c9af7/_DSC9734+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/5de90979-22ab-45bd-8097-cb810ff6a71e/_DSC9736+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/42de38df-4c71-4641-957c-6998368f8665/_DSC1932+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/315d0655-f638-4823-b6b4-74dd5e9f4cda/_DSC7416+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/be03b167-7bac-43d0-a0a9-4d0e98a600f8/_DSC7426+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/20c73fc3-bc82-45fb-a500-bff2dfc2d988/_DSC2038+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/210d049c-2360-4b05-b6e0-d38fef0f5a7e/_DSC2035+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/d95c86b9-3822-4144-b7b3-e11f797d3f9f/_DSC2034+%282%29.JPG The Town Walk https://www.bergueslabelle.uk/thefortificationswalk daily 0.75 2024-11-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625395970626-GNFYAVJV5SESJ1XKBD92/_DSC6995+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Fortifications Walk Plan This plan gives you the complete picture of the old town and its enclosing fortifications, together with the route of The Fortifications Walk from its starting point in Place de la République (the green dot) to its conclusion at the same place. However, peppered throughout the Walk that follows on this page are many larger-scale plans which take you step-by-step along the route. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625395843875-LP6FWRI0UO3QA6BXRA27/_DSC9569+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk This aerial photograph taken in the 1950s clearly shows the old castrum, the central ring of streets that follow the line of the medieval moat with the church of Saint Martin in the middle, but also shows the irregular line of the larger half of the ‘figure of eight’ of the town’s fortifications (the smaller half encircling the Groenberg and the abbey, out of sight to the right), arguably Bergues’s greatest historical asset https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625500134092-P9RYGUAK3C3QS06WVI2P/_DSC1475+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625500690037-IGSM43JC680SWDMBMRMW/_DSC3447+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625505619994-BAJU5D09MJUX4VKB73FF/_DSC3443+%283%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Plan of Vauban Premier Système of fortification with the main elements noted in the text 1 - courtine (curtain wall); 2 - bastion (bastion); 9 - fossé (ditch); 10 - cunette; 13 - demi-lune (half-moon); 15 - tenaille; 16 - glacis; 17 - chemin couvert (covered way); 18 - traverse; 19 - place d’arme rentrante; 20 - place d’arme saillante https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625562499286-L2ICALW3RA46485UNZ5Y/_DSC0236+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk And now for the Walk! Assuming you are still standing in the Place de la République, you should walk past l’Hotel de Ville on its right-hand side, along the Rue du Gouvernement and then onward into Rue de la Poterne (there are some fine houses on this street too, on the left as you go uphill) which heads to the breach in the town wall which in turn leads onto the Avenue de la Liberté. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625560870285-KN1I9PIZJE34D9ARHTAO/_DSC5817+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Starting from Place de la République, past the Town Hall and then uphill along the Rue du Poterne… Plan 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625561693505-8F4VJCF0BCBDCLLFCX2T/_DSC2054+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Rue du Poterne as seen from the top end with no.17 and no.19 the finest of the range of 17th-19th century buildings on the north side https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625562641866-N41UI3SB7XUOHYY8OPIK/_DSC5818+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …up the Rue du Poterne to the top where you see the breach in the town wall leading onto the Avenue de la Liberté… Plan 2 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625574434453-22CEKUVUTJZS50I2Y118/_DSC9775+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Once past the opening (which is modern) you will descend along the avenue, with the defensive wall becoming ever higher, on your right. Just as you reach the point where the avenue starts to curve off to the left, you’ll see a gravel path straight ahead which drops down into the ditch beside the defensive wall. This is the beginning of the town’s ‘Sentier de la Couronne Saint-Winoc’, a path with occasional information boards and strategically-placed benches, which we will follow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625575472243-FOR6HKMQDFEXALDGM8UZ/_DSC5819+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk ….down the avenue and further down onto the ‘Sentier de la Couronne Saint-Winoc’… Plan 3 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625576773776-8GQYZTBSOQ7GFTU4UHAM/_DSC3388+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The pre-French Revolution plan above clearly shows the old defensive wall running around l’Abbaye de Saint-Winoc site complete with moat. This part of the old wall vanished once Bergues fell definitively into French hands with Vauban in charge of further securing the town, resulting in the formidable Couronne de Saint-Winoc we see on the later plan (right), still in large part with us today https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625576836489-1WGNMB10V0X9K5GRGEQF/_DSC9603+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625575701827-V29KN0XW6RTR8IS47PGD/_DSC2111+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The first thing you’ll notice on walking into the ditch is the extraordinary sensation of transition from one world into another, that is, from the town and down into the oasis of calm the Demi-Bastion Saint-Winoc affords; it is as if you’ve passed through the entrance lobby of a great cathedral, from the bright and noisy exterior to the gloomy, near-silent interior. Secondly, you cannot fail to be impressed, standing in the ditch and looking up at the towering cliff-face of the defensive wall beside you. Just imagine the hundreds, if not thousands of men it took to build it and the vast quantities of material required to do so. The precision of workmanship involved in constructing such a structure is also to be marvelled at. The battered brickwork (meaning it is built to a receding slope or angle, in this case from the vertical) of the local yellow brick is very finely laid and sits on a coursed stone plinth which acts as a rusticated base, a typical feature of Renaissance building design. The plinth even has the sophistication of a canted stringcourse, one stonecourse below the junction with the brickwork. The wall is, not surprisingly, full of patch repairs and ‘open wounds’ that are often quite extensive but is more obviously in a general state of slow, silent decay, a state of play that affects the entire couronne. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625578503699-NNKR1LTOEU6SE7DT41XW/_DSC2384+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The ditch was connected to the network of waterways on the north and west sides of the town and when necessary was full of water, acting as a moat. Today, as you again cannot fail to notice, nature has reclaimed the ditch and as a result, the ditch has become dense woodland which extends all around the outer defences of the couronne too. The still-present cunette opposite the wall, the remains of the completely overgrown counterguard structure beyond the watercourse, the sheltered north aspect and the covering tree canopy, all combine to give this part of the walk a distinctive ever-present atmosphere of shade and damp. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625578853413-KCVOYMDA632MRRCCMN9Y/_DSC2218+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Continue walking towards the corner (or capital, the pointed tip of the Demi-bastion Saint-Winoc) and you’ll see that damage inflicted by a (probably) Second World War shell has been left unrepaired, so you see something of the thickness of the wall. On reaching the corner, one can again only admire the beautiful, finely-made cornerstone quoins. On rounding the corner, you are faced with something different again, as the equally-long but sunnier east face of the bastion, covered by creeping plants and hundreds of smaller species that find a foothold in the mortar, stretches away into the distance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625915916077-RH2AX49JBNM3OGYUZ0AD/_DSC2220+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk not just a defensive wall but in fact a work of consumate engineering skill https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625915990751-7JQFRHSUWPGQN7PRUDTE/_DSC2221+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk nature has taken hold with unbridled vigour everywhere https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625916453700-ITFAOO9WKHN0XS9B7R6B/_DSC2125+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk As you continue, you’ll see on the left the remains of the counterguard and further on, the Demi-lune Saint-Winoc; there’s a little bridge that crosses the cunette so you can explore the remains of these two structures if you wish (if you head eastwards, you’ll end up in the suburban estate which lines both sides of Hoymille’s Rue d’Ypres). These demi-lune structures, lying in front of the defensive wall, were designed simply to impede the enemy’s progress and often had a redoubt (a smaller structure on top, acting as a last defence before retreat, preferably stopping the enemy before it reached the main wall). The ditch surrounding it would also have become a moat when necessary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625923206403-B3UX1W7XCVVEGO11JK0Q/_DSC5820+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk passing by the first tenaille between Demi-Bastion Saint-Winoc and Bastion du Roi… Plan 4 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625920186203-6XWFHMHL7QLYS6YLVG4G/_DSC2229+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625920302520-MNFZVLV09PO0NOH9MXBD/_DSC2242+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk the daunting south-east face of the Demi-bastion Saint-Winoc (left) as seen from the capital at the north-east corner, where we can admire the superb workmanship of the stonemasons in forming these reinforced corners of the bastions At the corner where the Demi-bastion Saint-Winoc turns away from the path, we see another structure adjacent, almost completely hidden by the plants and trees, the remains of the tenaille. If you wish, you could take a detour and walk within the gorge created by the coutine and tenaille via a smaller path that is not always easily discernible; it is quite a challenging walk because of the sense of confinement and as it is not much used, can be somewhat overgrown. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625921910597-S8ZCC33HSOR7RL2U99KA/_DSC2238+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Is there anyone who would not want to be here? Continuing along the main path, you will pass an information board and seat and begin walking alongside the north face of the Bastion du Roi. If you look at the top of the wall from time to time, you’ll catch sight of some of the remaining huge, overhanging blocks of stone that formed the defensive wall parapet copings. At the tip of the Bastion du Roi, you follow the path around the corner and continue, so that you come to the south corner of the bastion where, as before, you can take the smaller path that follows the route of the defensive wall, should you wish to do so. To your left are the remains of the demi-lune located midway between the Bastion du Roi and Demi-bastion Saint-Pierre, completely taken over by nature with the roots of the trees breaking through the brick walls. Again, the tranquillity experienced here, animated by birdsong, is truly delightful. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625923861779-OVKGKMYIB198FLREFC7N/_DSC5821+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …and around the Bastion du Roi… Plan 5 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625924262586-194CGER8PFBUZU4291J7/_DSC2251+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk the south side of the Bastion du Roi https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625922601648-85UBAGSXK162IFRCI2CI/_DSC2252+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk the remains of outlying fortifications, almost completely taken over by nature, are everywhere to be seen on this part of the Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625924633751-RH6P30WYHON59RM0A35G/_DSC5822+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …to then pass by the caponniere and poterne midway between the Bastion du Roi and Demi-Bastion Saint-Pierre… Plan 6 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625922918114-FYYO64IUB9C0WND7PPES/_DSC4244+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625925187244-HKVE04BFHB43M534A6YC/_DSC5823+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …along the towering cliff face of the Bastion Saint-Pierre and around the corner…. Plan 7 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625924899488-LXSKZ0NERJ5FN7UDGC89/_DSC2153+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Passing the centre point of the demi-lune and reaching the beginning of the east face of the Demi-Bastion Saint-Pierre, the plants and trees give way on your right, thereby affording a fabulous uninterrupted view of the defensive wall in all its magnificent splendour, crowned with the equally if not more splendid sight of the large, mature trees on top, all inclined towards the parapet as if seeking to protect it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626090106667-EESBW7Z79D6M31QX8LTM/_DSC2281+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Demi-Bastion Saint-Pierre east face as seen from the south At the capital of the bastion, you again follow the path around the corner and you enter a more intimate area with pollarded trees lining a path on the left. At this point, Vauban’s wall has been replaced with a lesser modern wall (war damage, no doubt). Keep following the wall and you will come to the next corner with a rickety staircase leading to an opening in the wall itself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625925972438-68RXG0W45FOJMMB7P3F2/_DSC4246+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk At this point, you could take a small diversion and follow that easy-going stairway up to the top and perform a ‘U’ turn sharp left. Before you, a large open and green area with the backs of the 1960s Groenberg houses and the abbey towers beyond. Step further forward and you become aware of a very large hole in the ground – this is the rear of a series of ‘casemates’ arranged around a square courtyard with access stair down, together with passages and ramped paths linking other defensive areas along and around the couronne. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1625926351313-4CFMRY6LU6B3XP3NNXNE/_DSC9992+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626088776059-9SFXMI3PLFDFY380YWPB/_DSC2329+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Having visited the casemates, you should return back down the stair you used to get up there, to the ‘rickety stair’ in the ditch. At this point and stretching out westwards ahead, you see the last section of Vauban’s work before reaching the junction between the Couronne de Saint-Winoc and the older medieval town wall. If you wish, you could retrace your steps all the way back to where we started the couronne tour, by climbing the rickety staircase again, follow the easy-going stairway up to the top of the wall and walking all the way back along the parapet path. This walk, too, is exceptional, especially for being under the canopy that belongs to the trees far down below in the ditch. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626093556412-H7AW56LATNHTG7TR1FLA/_DSC5824+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk walking alongside the Rempart Bourguignonne, heading west… Plan 8 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626089497561-2CG8YEN6QYDJZHO0AS18/_DSC2303+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626092062602-MAN4JO8ETP1OIEOJ4NCM/_DSC2166+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Passing through the opening in the cofferdam, you’ll be struck by the noticeably different aspect of the medieval wall before you, compared to the seventeenth century fortifications we’ve just seen. The origins of these older walls and their towers and gates lie in the fourteenth century and the structures erected were far simpler than those of Vauban’s time, comprising long lines of high defensive wall, often with a crenelated parapet and projecting towers of semi-circular plan at regular intervals. Vauban clearly regarded these older surviving fortifications as fit for purpose, needing only repair and improvement where necessary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626092429969-0FIZRH6S7LO17HFQOL8B/_DSC2304+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Here we should talk a little more about the history of these older walls. We hope you may have already read a little about the history of Bergues in the ‘A Little History’ page on this website, so in relation to the older town walls we see today, it is probably correct to start at the death of Count Louis II in 1384. Flanders then passed to the Dukes of Burgundy and remained indirectly part of the French Crown. It was Philip the Bold who, on inheriting responsibility for Flanders, pursued a policy of strengthening the defences of Bergues, together with those of Gravelines, Ypres and Bruges. In 1403, he instructed that Bergues should cease to expand and instead improve its defences and levy taxes in order to do so. He also permitted the materials from damaged and demolished buildings to be used for this purpose. This period of rebuilding and improving lasted for quite some time, it is thought up to around the middle of the fifteenth century. The result was the completion of the ‘figure-of-eight’ plan which finally brought town and monastery together within the fortified wall. The wall had twenty-six towers, of which nine remain today, and a flooded moat all the way around, together with at least six town gates. So the wall you see ahead of you, the so-called Rempart Bourguignonne, is of this period although in common with all of the older walls, it is much repaired and modified and is best seen as preserving the route of the fifteenth-century wall, rather than actually representing it above ground. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626092509118-DJCY4IM1ON176ZMIFH1F/_DSC2311+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626093304842-G1HI2DMQ1N3THDW6MJAP/_DSC2169+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The path runs right beside the north face of the demi-lune and then heads towards an opening in the town wall, on the east side of the Tour des Faux-Monnayeurs (Counterfeiters’ Tower) which today distinguishes itself in having trees growing on top! This tower is a gate structure which also had the name Porte du Mont (Hill Gate) because of its proximity to the Groenberg. A polygonal stair tower, on the north-west side, served the upper levels. Archaeological work in 2010 revealed the remains of vaulting ribs and a chimneypiece inside, as well as a window opening. Many of the details are similar to the Porte de Bierne (Bierne Gate) which we’ll see later on, but the Counterfeiters’ Tower has an aspect today that does not match that of the Bierne Gate. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626094015292-AEQQXE1614PZ42DII51F/_DSC4260+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Rempart Bourguignonne as seen from the Tour des Faux-Monnayeurs platform Passing through the opening in the wall, you arrive on the north side of the tour. Here you see a flight of easy-going stairs leading up to the top of the tower, which affords a splendid view from on high of the area you’ve just come from. You could take the precipitous stair immediately left on leaving the tower platform but we recommend instead going back down the easy stairs you used, turn left and follow the upper rampart (dated 1880) around, keeping to your left and you’ll see a narrow path descend back towards the wall, ending in a stair that drops to a lower-level path right beside the wall. Follow this route (the wall with arched openings supporting the rampart path above, with gun slots in the wall) until you arrive at the Tour des Couleuvriniers (my best guess on this is the ‘Cannon Handlers’ Tower’; la couleuvrine appears to be a species of ancient cannon, whose name might be derived from couleuvre, a long thin grass snake, and les couleuvriniers are the men that attended the cannon). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626095571460-CCEFJP9XRN2TTFK1NI93/_DSC5825+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …from the Tour des Faux-Monnayeurs to the Tour des Couleuvriniers via the path on the north side of the town wall… Plan 9 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626181650325-V7KDS4GIKFJ2EJANZO08/_DSC4262+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk On passing through the Tour des Couleuvriniers, this is what you’ll see - the town wall marching onward to the Porte de Cassel If you then pass through the interior of the tower, you come out on the outside of the wall, beside the flooded ditch. Cross the ditch via the gravel path. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626096480220-PED39PPT3SG3SXHEKEAT/_DSC4263+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626193782773-NFNGVHZSX2JT95SREYE8/_DSC5826+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk From the Tour des Couleuvriniers alongside the moat to the Porte de Cassel and then alongside the Remparts Espagnole… Plan 10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626097360244-TYUIZ8EWCIYEKEFXU3UV/_DSC1432+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk A pre-First World War view of the moat east of the Porte de Cassel with the Tour des Couleuvriniers centre left and the larger Tour des Faux-Monnayeurs beyond and beyond that, the two abbey towers on the Groenberg… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626193556174-SEHO019CIBT3DRKOYWAF/_DSC6389+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …and a similar view today. What a shame that the superb tree we see on the old postcard did not survive to delight us now… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626096901653-AMO1TSLJGB9GX7IPTSZ2/_DSC4264+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk As you walk on beside the old moat, you will approach the Porte de Cassel at the southernmost tip of the town wall. For those of you familiar with other French fortified towns of the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries, the design of this gate will look familiar as many were built using an almost standard design. A curiosity here, on this the east side of the porte you’ll see five arrow slits; apparently, only four are original and of those that were, none were intended to be used i.e. they were there simply to fool the enemy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626194273848-JY3XJLE2JHH9UEYB2SPM/_DSC2386+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Bergues’s finest entrance. The cheap, modern railings are an unfortunate error of judgement (too spindly), made worse by being painted red Completed in 1752 and almost square on plan, the brick outer facade comprises two massive piers with recessed rectangular panels (a device used to the side walls as well) which rise the full height to the base of the open pediment that caps the whole gate, some 10 metres above ground. On the front facade only, the brick piers sit on stone plinths which themselves sit on more brick, with stone quoins to each corner; a nice touch is the remains of a mighty stone roll moulding at the junction of the brick and stone, entirely in keeping with the heavy-set design. The open pediment is entirely of stone, with a carved sunburst panel within it, symbolising ‘Le Roi du Soleil’, Louis XIV, much damaged apparently by the Germans. The gate’s arched opening is also formed of stone and set within a stone frame. Above, la pièce de résistance in the form of a busy stone panel (restored in 1995) depicting a coat of arms, sculpted by a Berguois named Van Brouchorst. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626195408580-Q46B88UVO9LTLM54TXRS/_DSC4238+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Porte de Cassel between the two World Wars. Compared to its condition today, the gate has lost little apart from the drawbeams and chains and the white paint (no loss there). The simple railings either side look perhaps rather better than those we see today. As for the Hôpital Saint-Jean, whose chapel belfry we see on the left, it did not enjoy a similar fate and was bombed to rubble in the Second World War, along with nearly all the houses we see behind the gate in what was then the Rue du Sud https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626194849019-RBH969T3HOY71AFNFFYH/_DSC9671+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The gate, along with every other that existed and survives today, was originally equipped with a winch within the structure which, via two timber beams and attached chains, lifted the bridge to close the gate as and when needed. The beam rebates within the facade are still present, but the bridge below is a modern fixed structure with inlaid timber boards to give at least an impression of what once was. Inside, there are two tall ancient-looking timber gates hung from brick piers either side which may or may not represent original thinking. The interior has a simple barrel vault. The rear side of the building has an impressive, rusticated brick facade with rusticated opening closed with a massive keystone. The top of the building mirrors that of the front in that it too has a pediment, but here closed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626194907697-HDOGSTUPBCRTKY7XF6Y0/_DSC4268+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1629450104269-UD0TF2GPKE42WRBMJD2B/_DSC7047+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The remains of the ouvrage as seen before the Second World War (see below) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626195067622-X02MYZ5ZHNBSZSZ2Z0YO/_DSC0381+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1631616485021-FEQS2GLVQK1XPCV197VJ/174cd7d916b0fa41e6da87dfe6a36164.jpg The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/cdec546e-48c6-44d1-95d0-bb0600be1322/B9732727509Z.1_20221121163033_000%2BGASLN23TL.2-0.jpg The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/cc73c555-31d7-4e8c-8c92-adedba476323/_DSC0300.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/f6cc7e8d-0dce-4ab2-bc3e-ea59acd55d3e/_DSC0326.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/341d7514-e1e5-40b1-b629-a71f0113589d/_DSC0316.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/c884bcc3-58d5-4a0d-b1e8-851e95f90509/_DSC0315.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/43a674ff-b9b3-407f-957e-c094e8bfe1fe/_DSC0310.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/6cafd17b-86fe-4e97-9447-ee49dac4d356/_DSC0305.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/3926aa96-1954-4ebc-bfbb-26550497b86f/_DSC0293.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/4ff88cb5-dbfe-4583-ba84-15ea4be6382e/_DSC0283.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/3aa68fa8-4e74-448e-a74e-d0bd0db56221/IMG_20230221_094635-1-1024x766.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/515b2680-a507-4034-a54f-eac36b1ebadd/_DSC0292.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/471d46d4-c430-4c34-be5f-69da5a25a966/_DSC0330.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/a01a5555-d6e8-4306-b99e-302b61aa615f/_DSC0320+%282%29.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/c53c09eb-0731-4df2-a508-b817c352d27a/_DSC0287.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/fd85db6c-e9de-4cc9-b396-ee35c2fbfe5d/_DSC0296.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626195328043-4RTNOSYY96OML773GLJ0/_DSC2185+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk To the left of the Porte de Cassel stretches what is known as the Remparts Espagnols, apparently dating from the sixteenth century but as seen today, much repaired, modified and tidied-up. With the advent of the iron cannonball came the need to better reinforce the medieval walls as these balls were capable of far more damage to the walls than had been the case previously. Here we can see this reinforcing in that the wall has a very thick massed-earth backing and is planted with trees, which not only helped to stabilise the earth but also provided for good drainage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626196134439-I4JLUEK870Y7PLX579G0/_DSC4204+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626196512386-K0GUA4WW474RDBQZXKJA/_DSC5828+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Having passed the projecting Bastion du Moulin, the Neckerstor is the next stop…. Plan 11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626196741971-MKII19PURY7RNQHPCUDB/_DSC0216+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Keep on walking until you reach our next point of interest, the Neckerstor. This gate is in fact a water gate. If you’ve been on ‘The Town Walk’, you’ll already know that there is a subterranean watercourse running under the town from here, at the Neckerstor, all the way to the Porte de Hondschoote over on the north side of the town; before being covered over, it was an open waterway. The tower’s name is Flemish, the Necker being an evil spirit from Flemish mythology which prowled the waterways and which apparently had a piercing scream that disorientated any travellers nearby. More likely to disorientate you today is the noise of the constant traffic on the D 916 and/or the passage of a steel coil train on the adjacent Arras-Dunkirk railway. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626197295695-RPFD1EN5M5YVGHHFHU8Z/_DSC0223+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The tor is again much altered. From where you’re standing, you see the semi-circular projection beyond the line of the defensive wall; behind it is a flat wall, so in plan the tower is a ‘U’ shape some 9 metres long and 7.5 metres wide, all sitting on a slightly wider base. The opening to the waterway is framed by a semi-circular stone arch with a flat lintol above with the semblance of a cornice (all of which looks to be seventeenth century). Inside, it is of two storeys with the ground floor having a quadripartite brick ribbed vault above (more than 5 metres high) and in the floor, a ‘murder hole’ with the waterway directly under – anyone hoping to achieve access via the water would come to a grisly end if found here. Also here, the sluice mechanism for maintaining the waterway level; we know that in the nineteenth century, the waterway had a brick semi-circular vaulted roof, was 3 metres wide and 3.6 high and had a water depth of 1.5 metres. The tower’s top floor is actually an open-air terrace which was once covered by a pepperpot roof, just as many of the other towers of the medieval period in Bergues. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626197114116-DHXF2ED61E2ONC8FNPWK/_DSC2465+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626197738987-3DGX51D1MQG9JID7GAYO/_DSC4014+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626197807939-YTNIJE67HGHQ1CPYJAIV/_DSC4270+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk On the ‘land side’, on the Chemin de la Neckerstor, the flat facade looks like a small castle with its parapet and attached stair tower and turret. This facade changed somewhat as part of a ‘renovation’ of the nineteenth century, a time notorious for the repair and so-called ‘enhancement’ of medieval buildings to make them suitably picturesque. The bullseye windows at the top of the stair and the turret are from this time while on the water side, the gun slots in the tower wall were bricked-up; the parapet to the terrace is also ‘new’. To see all this, you could make a short detour along the Chemin de la Neckerstor from the Porte de Bierne, which is our next stop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626198047877-NHREWDX8HHEQL54TCQBS/_DSC5829+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk An area of great contrasts - the station and the Porte de Bierne Plan 12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626198736664-RRE4HOWEW7SUHHAGC8UN/_DSC0873+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk La Gare de Bergues well before the arrival of the D 916. A bucolic scene when the station still had a buffet, there were allotments next to the moat and motor traffic was in its infancy… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626199385542-CLIJ2PYA7CBJVF6HFUUN/_DSC4199+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …and the not quite so handsome scene of today! The usual proliferation of street furniture, signage, bollards and barriers together with vast areas of paving regrettably not only successfully divorce the station from the town it serves, but also reduce the building to a hapless spectator. This fine nineteenth century creation desperately needs a new and respectful environment in which to take its place as a fine example of the architecture of France’s industrial revolution https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626265342665-L6TVWNGHM49VP03PAU6Y/_DSC8870+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626265782683-DGR7LE0INRDRGJH47X9D/_DSC9569+%283%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626266254025-JC1IAXNAN9HE1P6WDUK7/_DSC8831+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The glazed canopy on the platform side, together with its two side walls, have thankfully survived. The external fabric is obviously being maintained on ‘only when absolutely necessary’ basis (and the poverty of those repairs can be seen in what’s been done to the upper part of the south facade) and it is a shame that the interiors lie empty with the sole exception of the booking hall. On the right, an aerial view from the 1950s showing the station and its goods yard, with the zig-zag course of the Couronne de Bierne moat easily discernible https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626270853040-XVJ48QL09Q3HX2S2Y1ZC/_DSC9515+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Porte de Bierne before the Second World War. Beyond the gate, in the distance, the old beffroi and the spire of the chapel of l’Abbaye des Dames de Saint-Victor, all to be swept away in the coming conflict…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626271467707-ZJJ42KW9E271PN6RQJ5N/_DSC2179+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk …and the porte today. Along with all the other surviving gates to the town, this one has received more than its fair share of ‘restoration’ so one may, for example, look quizzically at the porthole cannon opening on the left-hand tower. While the town is going to build a new pedestrian access for the Porte de Cassel, there is a very strong argument to be made for this gate, right in front of the station, to be made motor traffic free i.e. for pedestrians, bicycles and emergency vehicles only Directly opposite the station, the Porte de Bierne. While it may be said that the Porte de Cassel is a refined architectural exercise and as such the best Bergues has, the Porte de Bierne (Bierne Gate, the name coming from the neighbouring village to the west), being older, is rather less sophisticated but considerably more imposing and certainly redolent of a defensive structure. It dates from the early fifteenth century and may be said to belong to the Châtelet style in that it resembles a small castle. It is typically medieval in having two massive ‘U’-shaped towers either side of the entrance itself and closely resembles gates of similar type erected in nearby Bruges and Cambrai. Again, it is difficult to look at this structure and be sure of what one is looking at, given that it had a nineteenth century ‘renovation’ but we can be fairly sure that the classical cornice over the entrance is a later addition, as is the winch, associated chain wheels and chains as well as the drawbridge supposedly heaved up to close the gate (the ‘drawbridge’ today is immovable). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626277448400-1EWI9RHCS2MRDERA5U8F/_DSC0197+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626276961683-R3TYBCYEB1BJXFCFKQDQ/_DSC4015+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The splendid columns and entablature of the town side of the porte could only be of Vauban’s time whereas those two porthole openings and doors below look decidedly modern The rear facade is almost completely flat except for the old stair towers and fine gateway, again of later date with new doorways and bullseyes each side probably even later. And one might expect a crenelated parapet all around or if not that, then a pepperpot roof structure on top; the parapet we see is again of later date. Inside, however, is the original quadripartite brick ribbed vault above the west bay, and the left-hand tower (from the entrance side) has an aiming slit that just might be original. Both towers would originally have had cannon slots but these have all been bricked-up, leaving just a few of the aiming slits. Never mind, the gate is unquestionably fine and a great introduction to Bergues with a nice view through to the town beyond with the beffroi in plain sight. The street is the western continuation of the Rue de la Gare, originally Bieren Straete and Rue de Bierne, on which stands one of Bergues’s larger monuments. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626278817515-MDGDTM5NCRMKI8YDRW9G/_DSC9948+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Directly behind the Porte de Bierne, the Caserne de Bergues is easily the largest single building in town, possibly exceeded only by the church of Saint Martin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626279143670-OODU1B542ZGKI68A66LQ/_DSC9575+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk A 1950s postcard with the Caserne and the Porte de Bierne. Traffic on the widened and re-routed D 916 would not take long to increase substantially, especially with the steady nationwide closure of railway goods depots (including that of Bergues, part of the remnants of which can be seen on the right) and consequent transfer of freight to road https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626279911447-5Q6OPX3PBM6WE7T0O9U0/_DSC9503+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The barracks were built during the years 1732-36 by an entrepreneur from Dunkirk, one Louis Jeanty and could house close to 1000 soldiers. Arranged on plan as a ‘U’ shape, the building is founded on thousands of oak piles driven into the unstable ground (notwithstanding that, the building displays a degree of settlement in several locations) and rises to three tall storeys with another two within the vast roof of the west wing, with just one attic storey to the other two wings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626280031537-AGFBZIRIVB4QDXQHVZ78/_DSC0227+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626354497817-63H0AXTVF8DGNNOJ8YR2/_DSC0059+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The architectural treatment to the walls is elegantly straightforward - a projecting brick cornice to the eaves with strong brick stringcourses defining each storey; a stone plinth and stone quoins to the building corners. Window openings all have slightly-projecting brick reveals (which match the projection of the stringcourses) and segmented brick arches, with cills of stone whose front faces line up with the stringcourses to which they are aligned; some cills are of brick. The large courtyard created was closed on the south side with a 6-metre-high wall with a large gateway in the middle, all now gone. The building was purchased by the town in 1950 and refurbished to become social housing; it is today named Résidence Leclaire. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626354430746-NLMCD0Y9XYNNF3K2UYPO/_DSC4197+%283%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626362066118-CVNJX8VM7DMD7WNUD8ZG/_DSC5830+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk From the Porte de Bierne, along the ramparts path, to the Porte de Dunkerque…. Plan 13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626362750109-PZJOYG7RVDRBFRMT33O2/_DSC8828+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626516559630-WX2DDM4FY9P65I6KD4PN/_DSC2424+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Did you bring a packed lunch? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626689568346-GJ6RS3X6CIIHKP1MJV22/_DSC9516+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Porte de Dunkerque before the Second World War, complete with drawbridge and cobbled road https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626689393387-37BANQNE8EYTSQAQC7W6/_DSC9943+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The porte today with no drawbridge and the cobbles also long gone. But it has come down to us in much the same condition as existed decades before and while the town is intent on remedying the pedestrian/motor traffic conflict at the Porte de Cassel, the same (and arguably worse) situation exists here too but there do not appear to be any plans for pedestrian footbridges here The Porte de Dunkerque is similar to the Porte de Bierne in having two massive semi-cylindrical or ‘U’-shaped towers either side of the road and is thought to be contemporary to it; it also had a drawbridge and massive timber doors to the rear. The rusticated stone columns belong to Vauban’s time, as do probably the stone cornices. One is tempted to speculate that, just as may be supposed for the Porte de Bierne, there were once pepperpot roofs to the towers but today just simple parapets sit atop the walls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626701315317-J5IQS3R74M1M0JTXQ46U/_DSC4285+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk If we walk just a little further down the road westwards from the porte, we come to a bridge where, on the left, you’ll see a complex of two cofferdams parallel with the bridge, with attendant sluices nearby. The canal passing between the cofferdams is the canal superieure which is the westerly continuation of the Bras de Décharge de la Basse Colme and the Canal de la Haute Colme which begins here, heading west to Bourbourg and points beyond. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626701412533-8DD4IAPTPCTI3GFTL14N/_DSC4277+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The sluices here enable regulation of water levels from the superieure to the inferieure, the channel that passes under the road bridge we’re standing on, which drains into the port. At the east end of the Bras, a similar set of sluices regulate water levels too. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626708077040-AKN9BFUE6ML8I6TWKU85/_DSC5831+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk From the Porte de Dunkerque to the Rue du Quai and the Port Plan 14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626856776094-UKI87HQI3DMRDVRFO2G1/_DSC9528+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Le Quai du Port as it was known before the First World War. The barges that used to sail here were of a Flemish design and known in Flanders as a Belgische spits, or the French péniche flamande, single-masted and modest in size. Called a guinot or péniche guînoise in French Flanders, this local name appears to have originated from Guines near Calais, where the French version was built https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626708509152-IQJ9ZTKQEV7UD9SW9CB0/_DSC2226+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Port de Bergues, an oasis of calm today https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626709342963-7PFHYGD95FGY9SNPD9LY/_DSC9593+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Above, a postcard view of the port as seen in the late 1950s through the west gate, with the Canal de Bergues stretching away into the distance, contrasted with the same view today (right) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626709552906-7ZNXXUCVREEZNYQ35KL7/_DSC9839+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626770619800-4LTKR8C1QRZMD6W7XRBG/_DSC2430+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626786688905-LSOTUBYEKJWTNOZBCWB5/_DSC9941+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Canal de Bergues heads almost directly north from the south-west corner of the port. Almost all the trees you see on the east bank (right) were planted after the Second World War and together form a linear nature park of some 6 kilometres in length, up to and including the Fort Vallières, an intermediate defensive post along Vauban’s Pré Carré https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626771666339-FTBYSBBIOKJJ8VO2X4ZH/_DSC3420+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk This extract from the plan produced by Jacob de la Fontaine in 1635 shows the Porte de Bergues at the time. At the south end, the Porte de Dunkerque (numbered ‘1’) and just a few steps north of it, the gate we’ve just passed through. The plan also shows the north gate and La Tour Rouge, both still extant but the mill you can also see next to the tour has not survived For many centuries, the port thrived via trade with England, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain, as well as inland trade with, for example, Le Havre and Nantes. Regarding the international trade, Bergues was known as Bergues-sur-Mer because navigation via the Canal de Bergues was direct from the English Channel, with sea-going vessels not needing to offload their cargo in Dunkirk as the Bergues canal had sufficient width and depth to accommodate them. This proved to be a regular source of friction with Dunkirk, as the ships sailed through its port instead of berthing and loading/unloading there, losing the city not insignificant revenue. Disputes about the maintenance of the water level in the Canal de Bergues were frequent and even the intervention of Charles V on the town’s behalf did not stop the rivalry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626866630281-L5LOFJM0CKPO7KZXJCLE/_DSC0145+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Today, the port sees an occasional tourist boat during the summer season but the sparse waterborne freight traffic still operating is confined to the déviation, bypassing Bergues, which runs more directly from Dunkirk to Watten on the (navigable) river Aa The French Revolution appears to have brought an end to regular use of the canal and this was accelerated by improvements in the roads and later, the arrival of the railway. The goods imported included salt, locally-sourced timber, French wines, coal, and fertiliser while those exported from Bergues included grain, flax, pulses and potatoes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the port was still active in the movement of coal, cereals, beetroot and manure but this was sporadic and ceased soon after. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626944004365-DN3TP2A90BC8VFDI19I1/_DSC9937+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Rue du Quai heads east alongside the water’s edge and the town wall here, along the port’s length, is thought to be the oldest part still extant of the town’s fortifications with parts dating from the fourteenth century. Walking along, we come to another porte on the right, a fine stone structure supposedly dating from 1620 although 1790 is inscribed on the keystone. The porte via which we entered the Rue du Quai probably once looked very much like this one too. The quayside terminates at La Tour Rouge (The Red Tower) which is also thought to be the town wall’s oldest. This tower is much better seen from the other side of the port and to get there, we have a choice. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626943917950-R1NL3OKONHF29EJ3ZWWZ/_DSC9940+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626944542079-L1DZU31RJAGZWKICGZFZ/_DSC5832+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk From the port, a choice of three routes to get to our next point of interest…. Plan 15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626954116270-NDLZPBWCH7AFWIK4D8E8/_DSC4195+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Whichever route we take, we will see immediately on the left after passing through the gate, Bergues’s second gunpowder store, the Poudrière du Rivage, a much larger building than the earlier Spanish equivalent we saw behind the Remparts Espagnols and constructed as part of Vauban’s work in the town in the eighteenth century. The building is unfortunately practically a ruin despite being a Monument Historique. It is not threatened by the Presqu’Ile development discussed in ‘The Town Walk’ but its future is clearly questionable, even though various ideas have been suggested, amongst them a discotheque. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626954818362-L20LOBOEC7WLKQLJCISD/_DSC8906+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk All three routes bring you to the canal basin in front of the Ancien Abattoir, from where you should head east alongside the basin and along the Rue du Marché aux Poissons and through the breach in the town wall where the old Porte d’Hondschoote once stood. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626959263724-P3WWFBOF21NUNF6KDIMN/_DSC2454+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626958576178-7BZSLISCP3B5IXFXLROP/large+%282%29.jpg The Fortifications Walk There is nothing left of The Porte de Hondschoote on the town side. On the outside, practically all that is left are the two rusticated brick piers and their attached stone columns; the pier ‘capitals’ are modern. Before it was demolished after the First World War in order to permit hay carts to pass through (!), it was a contemporary of the Porte de Cassel and had a centrally-located plaque over the arch (the arch at its highest at approximately half the pier heights) featuring the arms of Louis XIV, carved by the same local artist who provided that we still see on the Porte de Cassel. On top of that, a very heavy arched pediment completed the composition. The gate we see today was restored by the town in 2013. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626959485989-XVCZB34B6JR8EEDGBNC5/_DSC5833+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The beginning of a pleasant walk from the Porte de Hondschoote takes us to the Tour Rouge, but could take you much further… Plan 16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626961722189-QJ15P6037OQPS87RYOVA/_DSC2196+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The road you’re standing on is the D3 which heads in the direction of Hondschoote to the east of Bergues. If you now walk a little further on i.e. away from the porte, you will see a magnificent tree which marks the junction of the D3 with the Avenue Vauban, off to the left. Taking the avenue, you cross over the bridge next to a sluice on the Basse Colme and then, on your left again, you’ll see a single-track road that goes in the direction of the port, running next to the town’s campsite/caravan park on the right. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626962126331-QX33SRSQV4S8OUASRI68/_DSC0064+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626963744786-BSX146UU0OC79ZLOLTHP/_DSC0066+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The Promenade Charles Quint is like no other road in Bergues, bordering the moat with the old town wall beyond and trees everywhere - ‘beautiful’ hardly captures it https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626966117321-3TDIBIRXPTBGQ47716KZ/_DSC0079+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1626965942642-MIP7MVL6YHA96HWNCJQM/_DSC4293+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk But our interest here is primarily La Tour Rouge, which by standing on this side of the Basse Colme and the port, we can now see much better. It is thought to have its foundation in the period in the early fourteenth century when Guy de Dampierre, who was the Count of Flanders from 1278 to his death in 1305, ordered the erection of a new enclosing wall for Bergues in defence against the French (who were not happy with Dampierre’s alliance with the English). It is thought that it was this wall that finally united the two halves of Bergues, namely the Groenberg and its abbey, with the town below. Despite the new wall, Bergues was not able at that time to survive a siege so the wall did not prevent the town’s surrender through starvation. The tower is so-called because of the red brick used for the majority of the construction. Inside, there are two storeys, the upper served by a spiral stair against the curved part of the external wall, with the first floor having a vaulted brick ceiling and a fireplace. Externally, there appears little that could be called ‘original’ in the openings and there are many signs of repair. Indeed, it is likely that the upper half dates largely from modern times, with the lower parts perhaps older. The fact that the adjoining defensive wall appears to be separate to the tower i.e. the junctions are hardly ‘built in’ is another tell-tale sign of later work. But, like the Porte de Bierne and the towers to the Rempart Bourguignonne, the tower looks impressive and looks medieval! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627980050441-MJ3BPBFBPCRH35HI0I9C/_DSC0083+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk If you were to continue along this road, the Promenade Charles Quint (Charles The Fifth Promenade; Charles was the 31st Count of Flanders but is better known as the ruler of a vast empire. In 1549, Charles visited Bergues in order to present his son Philip to the town), you would walk alongside the port and then round the north-east corner to continue along the east side of the Canal de Bergues. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627981836237-RQSCLJGP7EO3OG051ILX/_DSC0105+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk This is a very quiet road (it becomes the prosaically-named Route du Golf further on), disturbed only a little by the noise from the D 916 on the opposite bank but it is truly lovely with mature birch trees both sides. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627984350539-WBUPVTLA1FA9ZX3A4MZW/_DSC0113+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk You could continue all the way north to Dunkirk and in doing so visit the sites of two forts belonging to Vauban’s time, Fort Vallières (which is today a nature park) and the Parc d’Agglomération du Fort Louis (a public park belonging to neighbouring Coudekerque, which preserves something of the fort’s layout but not much else as it was destroyed in the last war). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627985230476-AMTQDPZZ0KPFX24LZ0U8/_DSC0130+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk All perfectly possible by bicycle too. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627985516294-PQL85Z3NJL4A32PCRDW5/_DSC0119+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Just glorious… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627985894417-FI8MHAX0EA4X8N4CM50K/_DSC0134+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk But there are other beautiful walks in the same area and closer to Bergues, beside the flooded ditches which form part of the town’s northern defences, namely the Couronne d’Hondschoote with its Canal du Roi and Canal des Crevettes, the last of the defensive works executed by Vauban and completed in 1744. Really, not to be missed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627987712237-7PFKZI4441FPQ6MOZMSE/_DSC0086+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk To continue the tour, you should now walk back the way you’ve come up to the Avenue Vauban, where you should turn left and walk past the 1960s houses on the right, until you reach the eighteenth century l’avant-porte d’Hondschoote. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627988254373-B0B49YWIWK82E7BLKNV5/_DSC5834+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk We retrace our steps past the port, along Promenade Charles Quint and Avenue Vauban to arrive at l’avant-porte d’Hondscoote… Plan 17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627989583561-ZEABZRRV67ZYXG0482W4/_DSC9517+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Prior to The First World War, l’avant-porte d’Hondschoote, in common with all the surviving gates to the town, still possessed its drawbridge, beams and chains. Today, and apart from the loss of the drawbridge, the gate is essentially intact but the Second World War’s destruction meant the bridge over the moat also had to be renewed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627988931456-Y413K7V3OSYELQ2B5KXY/_DSC2191+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk l’avant-porte d’Hondschoote stands in splendid isolation, the only gate integral to the Couronne d’Hondschoote, amongst the last of the defensive structures built by Vauban You might ask, what is this gate doing here, far from the town wall? Well, the clue is in the name – the ‘avant-porte’ (‘forward gate’) of Hondschoote. Vauban was always keen, in planning the defences to a town, to add defensive layers, rather like the skins of an onion – once you peel away one, you find there is another. This technique is called ‘depth defence’ and so it is here where this gate forms part of the Couronne d’Hondschoote, constructed precisely in order to at least delay any invading force intent on reaching the town wall. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627990846248-SOTT2ZMKY0QR6P692Z6Z/_DSC2398+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk The porte on its outer face is stone-clad with each pier having a pair of attached columns, surmounted by a projecting capping finished on top with what appear to be pinecones; the gate is thus unsurprisingly known locally as the ‘Porte aux Boules’ (‘The Balls Gate’). The details have much in common with their cousin, the Porte de Cassel, in that they are robust, and the rusticated style is shared as well. You should now retrace your steps back to the Porte de Hondschoote and the town wall. As you approach the wall, you’ll see on the left-hand side a low arched opening which was the entrance to the little port beyond, which once served the fruit and vegetable farmers of nearby Hoymille and was also the north-east entrance to the town’s underground canal. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1627990744481-T7FX2KG9FVF23H0DAUD0/_DSC2397+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1628070712668-XYJLZZGZD1Z1LIF3WK4T/_DSC4017+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1628071733772-TAIOIBLIYUAJS8E7R66J/_DSC2208+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk Continuing on through the trees, we finish at the breach in the town wall where the Walk properly started, from where it is an easy walk down, back into town and the Place de la République, where refreshments are to be found! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1628072441813-8DJ4CUUFENTGXEW5T7EE/_DSC0236+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/761d2e20-21d4-4f99-8634-6350ac13b56b/_DSC4249+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/c8b99459-ef35-4dbf-a65e-966d0705f9d2/_DSC9953+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/b1d87f1b-df93-41a6-ac0b-ae2532917d48/_DSC4248+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/390a7cba-7109-448e-b691-6189c0a167be/_DSC9954+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/773e2853-0d98-4fc6-832c-80e0412498ee/_DSC4250+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/94506cb4-b2a4-4768-847e-5f12ed79d497/_DSC9955+%282%29.JPG The Fortifications Walk https://www.bergueslabelle.uk/history daily 0.75 2024-09-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1628513562654-C28WKT9638XTCFBBOLF6/_DSC9981+%282%29.JPG A Little History The Groenberg with La Tour Pointue on the left and La Tour Carée, the two dominant parts of l’Abbaye de Saint-Winoc that are still standing today. Hidden from view behind the enclosing trees and bushes on this, the south side of the town, lies part of what is arguably Bergues’s greatest monument, the fortifications built by Vauban in the seventeenth century. We look in detail at the remains of the abbey in ‘The Town Walk’, while discussion of Vauban’s fortifications may be found in ‘The Fortifications Walk’ on this website - we hope you will join us on a voyage of discovery! A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621951998966-WHZ8QYE61P04GKHWGNKP/abf06a2546b5925b4e9544b58830c966.jpg A Little History Dune landscape on the North French coast. The dunes that mark the character of the coastal area were in earliest times - and still are now - ever changing, with the tendency over time to extend north-eastwards https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621952316586-XBQYNM9M9Q5ATYRR6Q6R/_DSC5751+%282%29.JPG A Little History Pax Romana Belgica 1-3 AD. In Roman times, the coast did not lie where it does now and Bergues did not exist https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1629626634677-C7XFP47GGR72LXTKUYLD/_DSC9616+%282%29.JPG A Little History Bergues and its immediate environs today. Of notable importance, the three canals that provided early good transport routes, especially that from Dunkirk; the proximity of the French/Belgian border which effectively divides a region once homogenous; and the preponderance of little villages dotted around the town, overwhelmingly with Flemish names and dedicated to agriculture. Locations important to the history of Bergues include Wormhout to the south and Hondschoote to the east https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621953288686-X01U6XTZ31AB443F9566/_DSC5752+%282%29.JPG A Little History …and the linguistic divide just before the French Revolution https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621953197041-ANRJL96P7O7YQKW5Z6DG/_DSC5754+%282%29.JPG A Little History the modern French/Belgian border disected the region into two halves… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621953631861-P67ZNYWPAQZ845RYK9K4/_DSC2556+%282%29.JPG A Little History The little village of Killem, a few kilometres east of Bergues, is typical of the many small Flemish settlements in the French Westhoek. Here we see l'Eglise Saint-Michel and the Chez Noye, an architypal estaminet opposite Van Robaeys Frères, the largest employer here and fittingly for the Westhoek, a clothes and fabrics manufacturer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621953696504-UY7YGHZT16NVRCUKCC2Q/_DSC2555+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621956480878-SH1AYTZ0KVL5EEJ0WZ3B/_DSC3419+%282%29.JPG A Little History L'electeur de Lamartine of Bergues in the nineteenth century….. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1621956536205-ZQYLTGQ2X33UHTOQO7Y4/pt126047.1334613.w430.jpg A Little History ….and today, still the owner of all he surveys…. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622017669208-Y4VDV3OKJDVGQ0ITVWBS/_DSC5760+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622017117953-E04LDZG0ZVHCDEQ4II9N/_DSC3422+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622022302824-SZZYMA4PYL1O10QRSPYS/_DSC3438+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622027623003-HLN1HXM3G70JKTSQJK12/_DSC3435+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622035696232-L6P45L3EIZLD4IWVGGHP/JGr85VOpTMYhZ93Te9qZSW8ULMI8LBz6DFO-APiYsb0VRr_7ATKmqgChjMWXW3LFp1oSFKon9D8IHl1VjVlwt5oIqcucdUjnBL8.jpg A Little History The ruins of l'Abbaye de Saint-Bertin in Saint-Omer (left). This once vast institution was ordered by the Commune in 1830 to be demolished, a herculean task which, whilre providing stone for the new Town Hall, was never fully executed. The church's tower survived until 1947, when it collapsed due to damage inflicted during World War Two. The statue is of Suger, who co-founded the abbey with Bertin and as Abbot of Saint-Denis near Paris, the burial place of the French Kings, wrought changes to his church which heralded the arrival of the Gothic style in Christian architecture https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622035541779-EC76L7G9CRW1X7ZJ0NHS/Abbaye_Saint-Bertin.de_Saint-Omer.jpg A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622036396448-31LF0SDBGSTCVD1Q590M/_DSC3417+%282%29.JPG A Little History The beffroi and landhuys at Bergues, erected in the eleventh century, were burnt to the ground in 1383 The engraving above represents the buildings as they were in the Sixteenth Century https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622036343014-2XSEOVMW0RBBDTS5HG5V/_DSC1471+%282%29.JPG A Little History The arrival of the abbey at Sint-Winoksbergen in 1022 and the greater security afforded against the Normans (who in the ninth century frequently invaded the region) resulted in the monks encouraging the establishment of a textile industry here; trade in drapery and linen (used to make Roman togas) had already been established in Roman times. A Landhuys (an administration building, similar to a Town Hall) was built on the market square as was a beffroi, a tall and highly-decorated tower which was a symbol of the town’s emancipation in the form of a charter defining certain privileges, granted by Baudouin V to the town’s powerful merchants, involving local regulations and taxation. At the same time, the landscape around Bergues changed dramatically with extensive deforestation and draining of the land for argriculture. The tools used also improved with, for example, the replacement of the wooden plough with iron. The watermill was joined by the windmill in the twelfth century with, in the next century, the invention of the camshaft which added to the mill’s capabilities. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622037125283-USIWZS2FJ5AZAP97AXVO/_DSC5755+%282%29.JPG A Little History The town became a member of the London-based Hanseatic League, one of the most successful trading alliances in history which counted over 200 northern European cities among its members. Sint-Winoksbergen became an important trading and administrative centre, well-connected via the canal to Dunkirk and the sea, as well as to Nieuwpoort and Ypres via the Colme to Veurne in today’s Belgium. The Colme is the oldest manmade watercourse in France with its west course, the Canal de la Haute Colme, extending from Bergues to Watten (connecting with the navigable river Aa). Both this and the east course, the Canal de la Basse Colme from Bergues to Hondschoote (and onwards as the Bergenvaart to Veurne in Belgium) are long decommissioned. Via the Haute Colme and the river Aa, Sint-Winoksbergen was linked with St Omer. Main roads between towns improved in being paved, even if the minor roads remained rutted dirt tracks. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622037782940-BUJHZOACX9GPDR47O9XT/_DSC3453+%282%29.JPG A Little History The Mont-de-Piété was a public pawnshop and is today the town's museum Spanish rule led to a short period of prosperity in agriculture, textiles and even the Arts (the Mont-de-Piété in Sint-Winoksbergen, a local architectural gem, dates from this time) and further work was undertaken on the town’s defences, including the Biernepoort (Porte de Bierne), the Neckerstor and the walls and semi-circular towers between the Casselpoort (Porte de Cassel) and Bergepoort (Porte du Mont, today the Tour des Faux-Monnayeurs). But war again broke out when France, led by a young Louis XIV, declared war on the Spanish Netherlands, overrunning the town in July 1658. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622039268341-TGZ7XF8SGPO8MF4C7K69/lmd_0719_18_getty_594773940_-a0d2c.jpg A Little History Louis XIV https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622039924679-45MPTN8WSYY4GIQGD90S/_DSC2834+%282%29.JPG A Little History La Couronne de Saint-Winoc is Vauban's major achievement at Bergues. Today, it is a peaceful nature oasis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622039965546-NGW47H7KO9TJWSXKBXA8/_DSC1475+%282%29.JPG A Little History Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622040774857-PTHBALJEFLRQF8HNKDU1/_DSC3431+%282%29.JPG A Little History The eighteenth century saw more turmoil in the form of the Flanders Campaign in the French Revolutionary Wars. With the Revolution ongoing, Europe’s other monarchies felt some alarm at events and coalitions were formed to attempt to halt Revolutionary progress. Great Britain sent a force consisting of their own and Austrian, Hanoverian and Hesse-Kassel troops to take Dunkirk as it was seen as strategically important, both as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations and as a possible British base in Europe. The British-led force arrived and duly laid siege but was unable to take the port. The Battle of Hondschoote in September 1793 (Hondschoote lies just 10 kilometres east of Bergues; once a local centre of the felt industry, it is today a quiet town of some 4000 inhabitants which has conserved its fine church and town hall) determined a British withdrawal to Veurne as the French (using troops based at Bergues as part of their offensive) attacked supporting Austrian forces in the area, removing the protection afforded to the siege troops. The coalition forces withdrew. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622040815051-UC0EUAHRRIFYYF4NA5FR/_DSC1964+%282%29.JPG A Little History 'La Bataille de Hondschoote' is a painting of 1840 by Bellangé which hangs in La Salle des Delibérations in the town's Hôtel de Ville https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622041403171-0A782L2PQB90DMP9ZQ94/_DSC9498+%282%29.JPG A Little History Besides the changes to the town’s fortifications, the eighteenth century also saw the construction of military buildings, in 1724-25 the Citerne du Roi, a water reservoir built to serve in times of siege; and the Themines barracks on the what-is-now Rue de la Gare was built in 1732-36. Around the middle of the century, the Porte de Hondschoote and Porte de Cassel were rebuilt and various new buildings constructed in the town centre and in the abbey grounds. The canals in the town were widened in the period 1720-24 and starting in 1761, major work took place on the canal to Dunkirk to deepen and widen it so as to permit passage to seagoing ships. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622041565093-EIBICEO0JQG6Z1YZHW9M/_DSC9502+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622041886189-S8JPRQBV0CVUXXP7RWCB/_DSC9571+%283%29.JPG A Little History But with the Revolution came the destruction of the Church and with it the end of l’abbaye Saint-Winoc, with the expulsion of the religious community in 1791 which was followed the year after by the sale of the abbey furnishings and in 1798, the sale of the abbey itself. In less than ten years, little remained of the buildings as they were demolished for their bricks and stone to be used far and wide, although some material was bought back by the town and used locally. What remains of the abbey today is the original abbey church crossing tower (much patched up but still impressive) and la tour pointue (‘the pointed tower’) to the west of it. There is little doubt that social functions performed by the Church, such as education and helping the poor, suffered as a result of revolutionary fervour which effectively disbanded the institutions providing them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622042082161-RY113FF21BWK6BWTTNAF/_DSC3388+%283%29.JPG A Little History the abbey and grounds before the Revolution https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622042619255-KZQ3MWNR0TFEDFYHRZC4/_DSC2103+%282%29.JPG A Little History - At the time of the Revolution, Bergues was still an important administrative and judicial centre with wealthy civil servants, lawyers and the military making their home here. But this changed when Bonaparte transferred many state offices to Dunkirk and with ecclesiastical institutions also gone, Bergues started to suffer a reverse in its fortunes. This was exacerbated by the long-standing decline in the textile industry caused by conflict and competition but also by the beginnings of mechanisation which badly affected the domestic linen industry; nearby Hondschoote suffered particularly badly with hundreds of weaving shops closed. But Bergues’s status in some areas of commerce remained, such as the market for grain which endured up to and throughout the nineteenth century where it remained the largest in French Flanders and one of the largest in the Low Countries. Bergues’s Sous-Préfecture (police station) lost its role to Dunkirk https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622043651453-HFA6H41EWGRCVK7UF27E/_DSC0873+%282%29.JPG A Little History the station prior to the First World War https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622107567676-7BUP1TH5I57CE99UALLB/_DSC3429+%283%29.JPG A Little History This period of rapid industrialisation, where outside the Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing area, produced only local new industry and even then overwhelmingly in medium-sized towns such as Hazebrouck, with the much smaller Bergues remaining much as it was in the eighteenth century. While the mechanization of agriculture remained small-scale (mechanical seeders and harvesters started to make their appearance) and the tools thus predominantly traditional, there came other improvements in the form of chemical fertilizers (sodium nitrate) alongside the import of guano via Dunkirk. Crop yields increased dramatically, particularly those of wheat and oats while new crops, like chicory and sugar beet, were introduced. Regarding livestock, the number of sheep decreased in favour of pigs and cattle. The demand for agricultural produce continuously grew as the cities and towns expanded. At the end of the nineteenth century, French Flanders was still one of the least-urbanised areas of Europe, which meant that the countryside retained its dominant position in a semi-industrial rural economy, an aspect we still see in and around Bergues today as it has remained an agricultural centre with associated industry servicing it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622107367081-00JDZILS48WDYM0J60JY/_DSC3405+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622108062800-DHBUAIBZXSN0U1GDM7TO/_DSC9450+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622108914878-KDXP01GCVIX0B5IW2B33/_DSC9455%2B%25282%2529.jpg A Little History The north-west corner of the Rue Nationale at the Place de la République, after the German bombardment of May 1915. The Second World War would later finish the job in removing everything you see in this contemporary postcard https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622109089236-VYNSQKBAFNUGTWOZ1DV6/_DSC5756+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1628935927084-SMBGJX4FISW3LTVZEK8K/bb45161def5086915f0c60ca6e6715a1+%282%29.jpg A Little History Diksmude and Ypres, the former much more badly damaged than Bergues… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622109616076-L9NO2RFU3GU6JPND0OH8/Daily_Mail_Postcard_-_Ypres_after_two_years_of_war.jpg A Little History .....and the latter almost completely reduced to rubble https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622110720161-HT04C9IPWL4FQ0Q3PFJT/_DSC0889+%282%29.JPG A Little History The beffroi and landhuys after the May 1940 German aerial bombardment. The beffroi was not to survive.... https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622110838936-WLS3BIOGHRG9A2FL8KC9/_DSC0888+%282%29.JPG A Little History ....and neither did the tower of Saint Martin's church https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622111571397-V6GYZKW7VR15KI5HX50T/_DSC9572+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622111676955-SYOHMWZ4B7WGF6BBVB9Q/_DSC1413+%282%29.JPG A Little History Above, the Groenberg soon after the end of the Second World War, dotted with temporary housing and on the left, the new housing built in the 1950s to replace it and any old houses beyond repair https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622114960603-39IOEBWJV254BIM27U9Y/_DSC9636+%282%29.JPG A Little History In the Westhoek generally, increasing prosperity in the postwar years meant significant change in the agricultural industry in the form of still greater mechanization. This in turn had the effect of reducing the rural population in the area as machinery took over their jobs. This process was aided and abetted by the state via its economic policies as well as state spending. Cultural changes in the area resulted too, for example from the growth in television viewing, where instead of perhaps going to an estaminet (a traditional Flemish bar) just across the border, people now stayed at home watching football (and a national league game, not a local one). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622114833153-H8GDOWDML5YS5A261SJY/_DSC2605+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622115165753-20X4B6XXRIAS4XUO277B/Jielbeaumadier_distillerie_duriez_coppenaxfort_2010.jpg A Little History Some 14 kilometres west of Bergues and located on the Canal de Bourbourg at its junction with the Déviation du Canal de la Haute Colme which today provides for canal traffic to the river Aa, Coppenaxfort is a tiny hamlet that exemplifies the loss of local industry to leaner, more modern competitors. Above, the ever-deteriorating complex of buildings that formed the Duriez distillery (1857-1986). Coppenaxfort also once had a flour mill (Chevalier, 1911-1980) and a brewery (Dambre, 1769-1952). On the right, not the interior of the Duriez plant but the interior of one of hundreds of once busy ateliers, decades later still seeking a new use or, more likely, demolition if the site is ever purchased for redevelopment https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622115236897-LDGR41ZD9ASQHVV7MGHA/B9720294776Z.1_20190717145505_000%2BG1HE366DS.2-0.jpg A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/391b8164-6460-42e3-a88a-ddb7f5cd8471/_DSC0341.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/5020908a-c817-43be-aedc-4888cac8dcf2/_DSC0340.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/e8243d3a-6fbe-4b10-88ca-def3e0b83e41/_DSC0337.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1622116630390-7IY20G1BKWNGUFJZQ2HI/_DSC9723+%282%29.JPG A Little History https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/01ac8f9f-43bb-4d77-a45e-cb2e057c91f1/_DSC2410+%282%29.JPG A Little History bergueslabelle/flandersflag https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/cb114207-0495-49ee-a4dc-733a4dde4f48/hms-hem129652+%282%29.jpg A Little History bergueslabelle/flandersprocession https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/ae1f63ff-faeb-4d0a-92f3-ac45195d51b5/flemish-beef-stew-with.jpg A Little History bergueslabelle/traditionalfood https://www.bergueslabelle.uk/home-1 daily 1.0 2024-04-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623073290913-8SHXT7950W3JE77CO88U/_DSC9614+%282%29.JPG Home - A Little History From the very earliest days, right up to the early 21st century, this page provides a concise and fascinating look at the history of Bergues, a town habitually caught in the crossfire of war and shifting boundaries as well as the upheavals of economic and occupational changes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623074275642-X1KED2EMAERX1RTR5UEH/_DSC9433+%282%29.JPG Home - The Town Walk On this page, we take you on a step-by-step tour of the streets and squares of Bergues, not just a feast of fine buildings from the 15th-19th centuries but also a fascinating synthesis of waterborne trade and agricultural prowess. And we ask you to take a closer look at some of the town’s post-war domestic architecture too - it’s rather more than what it might at first sight appear to be https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60abbba8944261193e0078ec/1623075143801-A0H8O8X7Y0AR4X7ADVQE/_DSC2834+%282%29.JPG Home - The Fortifications Walk Amongst the town’s many attributes, the fortifications that define the town’s perimeter may be seen as its most imposing legacy, certainly in terms of their extent and variety. On this page, we take you on a step-by-step tour around them, during which you will be utterly beguiled by the peace and serenity of their beautiful setting