Beffroi de porte de Lucheux and Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Beffroi de porte de Lucheux

   Lucheux is a small village in a wooded valley in the north of the Somme, close to the border with the Pas-de-Calais, and its belfry is something of an oddity. Rather than rising above a town hall or a market square, as in the larger towns of Flanders and Picardy, it is built into a fortified gateway, a stout stone tower straddling the road through the village. It is part of the group of belfries of Belgium and France listed by UNESCO, a symbol of the civic freedoms that towns and villages won from their feudal lords in the Middle Ages. Above the village stand the ruins of a castle that belonged to the Counts of Saint-Pol, with a great hall and towers in a romantic state of decay.

   Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Beffroi de porte de Lucheux is where the day begins. Next is Cité des Sports Wingles.

2. 2. Cité des Sports Wingles

   Wingles is a town of nine thousand people in the old mining basin, sitting on the edge of the plain where the Lens-Béthune coal fields meet the canal of La Bassée. The coal here was dug from the mid-nineteenth century, and the town still bears the marks: rows of workers' houses, a handful of pit headframes, and slag heaps that rise from the farmland. The sports complex that gives this stop its name is a modern echo of the old social life of the mine, when companies built stadiums, bandstands and gymnasia for their workers, and brass bands and football clubs were as central to the community as the pit itself.

   Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cité des Sports Wingles comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple.

3. 3. Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple

   A steel tower with a big wheel at the top: once you have seen one headframe, you start to spot them all across the north of France, but each one marks a place where men went down into the dark. The headframe of the Fosse Dutemple, between Valenciennes and Petite-Forêt, is one of the survivors, kept as part of the UNESCO-listed Nord-Pas de Calais mining basin. Under it, cages once dropped miners hundreds of metres to the coal seams; now it stands as a monument, its pulleys still against the sky.

   Read the complete Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Chevalement de la fosse Dutemple. Next is back through Cité des Sports Wingles.

4. 4. back through Cité des Sports Wingles

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Cité des Sports Wingles write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Cité des Sports Wingles, late in the day. Next is Beffroi de porte de Lucheux.

5. 5. Beffroi de porte de Lucheux

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Beffroi de porte de Lucheux write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Beffroi de porte de Lucheux. That is the ride.