These regions are home to the many sites that bear the scars of two world wars. The sites commemorate the selfless sacrifice of those who took part and now, thanks to the regional Remembrance Trails, you can discover them at your leisure along local cycling and hiking routes. Each route develops a specific theme and is accompanied by an illustrated guide. Consult the guide on your mobile (or download it) to discover the human side of these conflicts and learn about the region and its history in an original and compelling way.
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Prior to the total destruction of Bailleul in 1918 the heart of the town was a rectangular open area known as the Grand’ Place. it was lined with numerous shops, home to trades such as clockmaker, jeweller, grocer, cobbler, hatter, seedsman, baker, tailor, barber, photographer, ironmonger, and toymaker. there were probably twenty cafes and bars before the war.
Residences of the wealthy burghers were concentrated in rows in the town centre and were, for the most part, built in the classical style of the eighteenth century which featured white rendered façades with rectangular, archless windows.
In March 1919 the town council began consulting on plans to rebuild the town, its edifices and infrastructure. the council received several tenders and voted in its meeting of 25 March 1920 to select the proposals of Louis-Marie Cordonnier. These included reproducing the original layout of the town, rebuilding its main monuments and widening the streets that converge on the town square or Grand’ Place.
Cordonnier also chose to pursue a neo-Flemish aesthetic inspired by several dwellings of Bruges. Public buildings, homes and even some factory façades were built in this architectural style, thus bestowing on the town a completely new appearance.
Photos credits: CHAB
A new class of French society emerged between the tenth and thirteenth centuries: the bourgeois or burghers. They were merchants and businessmen (often drapers in the case of Bailleul) who demanded the right to administer their affairs themselves. towns which obtained a ‘charter of the liberties’ from the Count of Flanders would then build a bell tower or belfry. Bailleul bell tower was also used as a watchtower during wartime and, as such, witnessed numerous fires and the reconstruction works that followed. We are reminded of the tower’s role as a lookout post by the vane at its summit which shows the fairy Mélusine watching over the town.
In late March 1918 a German shell severely damaged the tower and several days later Allied artillery, in an effort to force the occupier out of the town, reduced it to rubble. All that remains of the tower are the walls of the Gothic room, now a listed historic monument, which date from the thirteenth century. After the war architect Louis-Marie Cordonnier was given the task of rebuilding the town hall and the bell tower, both opening in 1932. in 2005 they were recognized by UNesCO as world heritage.
The tower is composed, at its base, by the Gothic room which is surmounted by a balcony (the mayor’s office) and the archives room where the precious charters were once conserved. Above the clocks can be seen the parapet from where the patrol kept lookout. The campanile contains a carillon of thirty-five bells which plays Flemish melodies on the quarter hour. The most remarkable feature of the town hall is the portico above the main entrance. From its balcony representatives of the magistrate would read out ordinances and announce important events. Immediately below its roof is a niche containing a statue of Our Lady of Faith, patron saint of homes.
Visitors can, during opening times, admire the vast stained-glass window that overlooks the grand staircase. it depicts the trades that brought prosperity to the town (lacemaking, potting, flax spinning, wool weaving) and the crops grown in the region (flax, wheat, hops, potatoes).
Photos credits: P. Morès / coll. P. Verdru / IWM / Ville de Bailleul
Bailleul boys’ school once stood on the site now occupied by the town’s water towers. It was requisitioned during the war by the British authorities who used it as a dispensary for the military. In 1915 it became British Casualty Clearing station No. 53.
There used to be a public fountain in front of the school. it was built in 1844 to alleviate the chronic water shortage affecting the town and drew its waters from the springs of Mont Noir.
Water was distributed to the population at eight points situated around the fountain. The first water tower was built in 1882 and abutted the gable of Bailleul Church. It was destroyed in the shelling of 1918. In 1921 a replacement water tower was erected on the highest site in the town so that water could be distributed to the new houses built with several storeys. Consequently, the boys’ school had to be moved to another site.
A second water tower was added in 1961, drawing its water from the Artois Hills some forty kilometres from Bailleul.
Photos credits: coll. P. Verdru
This museum was founded in 1861 on the bequest of Bailleul native, Benoît De Puydt, a court clerk and wealthy collector. Throughout his life the art enthusiast acquired objects relating to Flemish culture from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, assembling a vast collection. subsequent donations from artists and art-lovers have intensified the charm of this unusual repository.
During the Great War the museum remained open for soldiers and important visitors, gaining the surname ‘Le Petit Cluny’, a reference to the Paris museum of medieval history.
In March 1918 two military trucks moved part of the collection to safety in Normandy. However the museum building was utterly destroyed and probably seventy per cent of the collection was lost. War reparations paid for the collection to be rebuilt.
For the paintings lost in the war, the museum has found a novel way of bringing them back to life: descriptions of the original works written in 1881 by the curator of the time are displayed on panels of similar size. All the viewer has to do is add a little imagination....
Photos credits: Musée Benoît-De-Puydt
During the war No. 30 Rue du Musée, which belonged to historian Ignace de Coussemacker (1842–1890), was used as a place of worship. It displays a votive pediment and cartouche bearing the inscription: ‘This house is one of the few buildings to have survived the destruction of our town in 1918, praise be to the adorable heart of Jesus.’ It is clearly different in design to the neighbouring houses which date from the post-war reconstruction, such as No. 36 whose red-brick façade incorporates stone scrolls, pinnacles, scallops and pediments.
Marguerite Yourcenar Hall (No. 3) was designed in 1923 by the architect René Dupire to be used as a place of worship while the church was being rebuilt, and later for the parish’s charitable works. It was severely damaged during the air raids of 1940 and restored on a modest budget. Despite the losses the overall design is of high quality and its references to medieval Flemish style are precise and learned. Note the tudor arches surmounting the main entrances.
Photos credits: Coll. P. Verdru / OTI Cœur de Flandre
Dedicated to saint Vedast, the pre-war church was a ‘hall church’ whose nave and side aisles were of similar height and breadth. the style was popular in Flanders from the fifteenth acentury. There also used to be a public garden at the back of the church.
Post-war reconstruction of the church came to a halt in 1926 to allow the architects L. M. and L.S. Cordonnier the time to draw up a more modest design, reducing the cost of construction by half. Works restarted in 1930. However the quality of the materials had to be high for such an imposing ‘neo-Romano-Byzantine’ edifice. Its eclectic style references the Romanesque in the tympana, the tower, the chevet, the pulpit and the high altar; art deco in the organ case; egyptian art in the capitals and the confessionals; and Ravenna art in its use of mosaics.
Lucien Detrez oversaw the iconographic work. Camille Deberdt made the sculptures and Charles Hollart, the cartoons of the historiated stained glass windows. Stained glass windows in the ambulatory tell the story of Bailleul and those in the transept, the saints of Flanders. The apsidal chapel is devoted to saint Anthony the Great, a saint who enjoyed particular devotion among the inhabitants of Bailleul as protector and healer.
Photos credits: Ville de Bailleul
These two houses are the work of architect Jacques Barbotin. The design of No. 4 was inspired by an old house in Bruges. One of the most imposing buildings of the post-war reconstruction, its façade is almost seventeen metres long and comprises three sections of which the central gable underlines the building’s symmetry. The ornamentation is of high quality and comprises numerous decorative motifs, including moulded doors, salient arch stones, a baroque cartouche, a small balcony, a votive niche, and dormer windows with lanterns.
Photos credits: Ville de Bailleul
The war memorial stands on the site of the old Jesuit chapel which was built in the seventeenth century and dedicated to saint Armand. It commemorates the destruction of the town, the sacrifices of soldiers and civilians, and those who died in the war of 1870. Architect Jacques Barbotin’s design incorporates materials recovered from the ruins of the town’s principal monumental buildings (bell tower, church and chapel). From Desolation springs Victory bursting with Life (sculpted by Camille Debert).
Photos credits: OTI Cœur de Flandre
Built in 1925, the Lacemaking school taught the techniques of making lace with bobbins. Its remarkable neo-Flemish character features yellow brick walls, stepped gables, diamond leaded windows, wall tie plates, eaves, and typical door and window frames. A coat of arms on its façade shows a young lacemaker at work and a lace winding frame. The inscription Le Retour au Foyer references a charitable organization which revived the teaching of lacemaking. A bust depicts the American lawyer and philanthropist William Nelson Cromwell, one of the charity’s patrons.
Photos credits: OTI Coeur de Flandre / Coll. P. Verdru
In 1713 the ratification of the treaty of Utrecht attached Ypres and its castellany to the House of Austria. As a result Bailleul became the bailiwick and presidial seat, or court of justice, for all ‘French Flanders on the coast’. This fine example of French classicism was built in 1776–77 and is the only public building in Bailleul to have come through the war unscathed. Restoration works in 1920 included rebuilding the right-hand spans and the roof destroyed in the war.
Photos credits: Coll. P. Verdru
This obelisk was erected to commemorate the 25th Division of the British Army which suffered heavy losses holding the front at Bailleul between 1915 and 1918, in particular at the Battle of Messines. On the sides of the memorial can be read the names of the division’s units and the battles in which they took part. In total 13,290 British soldiers perished in the area. they also show the coats of arms of Great Britain and Bailleul. The town was awarded the Croix de Guerre on 7 June 1921 on the occasion of the unveiling of the memorial.
Photos credits: CHAB
Bailleul public garden owes its name to Jean Plichon, member of the French parliament from 1888. His house at No. 8 Rue saint Jacques was destroyed in the German offensive of April 1918. After the war he donated the land to the town for the purpose of creating a public garden. in his inaugural speech he declared that Bailleul had lived up to its reputation as a ‘garden town’. even today it is affectionately known as ‘the town in the country’.
Formerly a girls’ school, the current nursery and primary school was built in 1923 from plans by René Dupire. its long red brick façade features a central pavilion and is highly decorated, including a broken or open pediment. Numerous windows ensure the classrooms were brightly lit. twenty-two dormer windows provide natural lighting for the rooms under the slate roof.
Photos credits: Coll. P. Verdru
Considered to be one the finest examples of the post-war reconstruction, the library was designed by architect René Dupire and opened in 1926. It stands on the site of the original girls’ school and the Dames de saint Maur boarding school, both anterior to 1914. As for the boys’ school, it comprised four separate buildings arranged around a garden. One contained the classrooms, another the bath house, and the other two were accommodation.
Set back from the street, the classroom building comprises a forty-five metre monumental façade whose subtle play on light and shadow shows off to best effect the sand-coloured bricks.the advanced central part is connected to the bath house which, today, contains the public multimedia library. Access to the baths was not only open to pupils but also to inhabitants of the town whose houses were not equipped with washing facilities. Its existence underlines the council’s desire to use the opportunity of the post-war reconstruction to improve public health.
Photos credits: OTI Coeur de Flandre
Bailleul Communal Cemetery was set up in October 1914 near the town cemetery to take the bodies of British, French and German soldiers. Because it was a hospital town, Bailleul concentrated many of the wounded returning from the numerous battles of Ypres. In late 1915 an extension was added to the first military cemetery to accommodate a further 4,500 dead, most of them British or from countries of the British empire, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India.
After the armistice in 1918 the graves of the small cemeteries dotted around the district of Bailleul were moved to this Communal Cemetery extension and the wooden crosses were replaced with white headstones. On the cemetery’s southeast side two imposing chapels, resembling Greek temples, flank the Stone of Remembrance. The latter bears the famous Kipling inscription: their name liveth for ever more. A third British plot, the Outtersteene Communal Cemetery extension, is situated in a small village in the district of Bailleul. It contains 1,397 graves.
Today, the many gardeners of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission busy themselves throughout the year to maintain the cemeteries and keep them in bloom from spring to autumn.
Photos credits: OTI Coeur de Flandre