Row upon row of identical brick houses, each with its small garden, outbuilding and front door painted in the colour of the mining company: that is a cité minière, and Cité Foch, between Hénin-Beaumont and Montigny-en-Gohelle, is one of the many hundreds that the coal companies built across northern France. They were designed to house miners and their families close to the pits, and they came in different forms over the decades, from the long terraces of the nineteenth century, the corons, to the garden cities of the early twentieth century, with semi-detached houses, wide streets and green spaces. Many of these neighbourhoods are included in the UNESCO listing of the mining basin.
The cités were more than housing. The companies built schools, churches, shops, dispensaries and sports grounds, creating whole communities that revolved around the pit. After the First World War, when the northern mines had been devastated by the fighting, large numbers of Polish workers were recruited, and their influence is still visible today in surnames, churches, and the pastries in local bakeries. Walking or riding slowly through a cité gives you a sense of that shared life, with its strong traditions of solidarity, brass bands and pigeon racing.
Around Hénin-Beaumont, the landscape is dominated by the slag heaps, the largest of which, the twin cones of Loos-en-Gohelle near Lens, rise to well over a hundred and fifty metres and can be climbed on foot for a view over the whole basin. Lens itself is home to a branch of the Louvre museum, built on a former pit site, and to a football club with a famously loyal following.
As for riding, this is urban and suburban terrain, flat and busy, with plenty of traffic lights, roundabouts and speed bumps. Navigation is easy enough, but it pays to ride calmly and enjoy the details rather than hurrying through. Hénin-Beaumont, with about twenty five thousand residents, has fuel, food and all the services you need. The local cafes are friendly and unpretentious, and a plate of chips or a welsh, the regional take on cheese on toast, drenched in beer and melted cheese, will set you up for the rest of the afternoon.