Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle and Beffroi de Béthune

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle

   Old and new: the label names two generations of company housing at Chabaud-Latour, and walking between them is a short lesson in how mining employers thought about their workers. The older cité is a grid of long brick rows, the corons of Zola's novels, packed close to the pit so that men could be at the shaft in minutes. The newer one, built later, spreads out in pairs and small groups of houses set in gardens, with wider streets and green space, part of a shift towards the garden-city ideal in the early twentieth century. Both belong to the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site.

   Read the complete Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle is where the day begins. Next is Fosse n°2 de Flines.

2. 2. Fosse n°2 de Flines

   The headframe is the giveaway. In the low, watery country between Lallaing, Anhiers and Flines-lez-Raches, the steel or concrete winding towers of old coal pits still stand as markers, and Fosse n°2 de Flines is one of the sites that recall the industry that shaped this corner of the Douai area. A fosse in the local vocabulary is a pit with its shafts, buildings and spoil heap, and around each one a small world grew: rows of brick housing, a church, a school, and the company offices that ran the lives of everyone underground and above it.

   Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Fosse n°2 de Flines comes up 26 km in. Next is Cité Saint-Paul.

3. 3. Cité Saint-Paul

   The mining basin of northern France is a flat, open country that seems to have been built entirely by hand, and among the first things you notice are the hills that nature never put there. They are the terrils, the slag heaps of the coal mines, some of them more than a hundred metres high, and around Courrières they punctuate the horizon between rows of brick houses. The Cité Saint-Paul belongs to this world: a miners' housing estate, laid out by the mining company with its rows of uniform houses, gardens, schools and a church, so that a worker could live, shop and pray within the company's reach.

   Read the complete Cité Saint-Paul write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   52 km in you reach Cité Saint-Paul. Next is Beffroi de Béthune.

4. 4. Beffroi de Béthune

   The belfry of Béthune has been standing in the middle of the Grand Place since the fourteenth century, and it has survived more than most of the buildings around it. In 1918 the town centre was almost completely destroyed by German shelling, and the square was rebuilt in the 1920s in a mix of Flemish and Art Deco styles, with tall, ornate façades in brick and stone around the old tower. The belfry, a symbol of the town's ancient freedoms, is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, and climbing its stairs gives a fine view over the rooftops and the flat land around.

   Read the complete Beffroi de Béthune write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Beffroi de Béthune, about halfway. Next is back through Cité Saint-Paul.

5. 5. back through Cité Saint-Paul

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Cité Saint-Paul write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Cité Saint-Paul sits at 105 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fosse n°2 de Flines.

6. 6. back through Fosse n°2 de Flines

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Fosse n°2 de Flines write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Fosse n°2 de Flines comes up 131 km in. Next is Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle.

7. 7. Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle closes the day.