Why this ride
From Denain it runs 269 km to Denain; allow about 4 h 27 of riding. It goes by way of Terril 140, Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d, Terril 34 and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle and Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 269 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 27
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
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 Terril 140.
2. Terril 140
Rising out of the flat fields north of Douai, the black, cone-shaped hill of Terril 140 is not a natural feature at all: it is a heap of mining waste, the spoil left over from decades of coal extraction. The mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, listed by UNESCO in 2012 as a cultural landscape, is studded with hundreds of these terrils, some flat-topped, some pointed, and together with the pitheads, workers' housing and railways they tell the story of an industry that shaped the region for nearly three centuries.
Read the complete Terril 140 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Terril 140 comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d.
3. Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d
In the mining towns of northern France, the companies built not only pits and houses but whole communities, with churches, schools, dispensaries and, after the First World War, monuments to the dead. This war memorial and the iron gates of a mining cité in Mazingarbe are small parts of that story, included in the Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin World Heritage site. They stand among rows of brick houses, gardens and allotments in a town shaped by coal.
Read the complete Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d. Next is Terril 34.
4. Terril 34
A terril is a slag heap, a mountain of waste rock dumped beside a coal mine, and in the flat land of northern France these man-made hills are the closest thing to relief for miles around. Terril 34 is one of hundreds that dot the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin, a UNESCO site since 2012, which recognises not only the heaps but also the pithead frames, miners' housing estates, schools, churches and railway lines that made up the landscape of coal mining in the region for nearly three centuries. This one sits near Norrent-Fontes and Lillers, at the western end of the basin, where it meets the chalk hills of Artois.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Terril 34, about halfway. Next is Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin.
5. Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Hesdin is a small market town in the green valley of the Canche, in the Pas-de-Calais, and it owes its existence to an act of destruction. The original town, a few kilometres upstream, was razed in 1553 by the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and a new fortified town was built here the following year as a strongpoint on the frontier between France and the Habsburg Netherlands. The grid of streets and the large market square still follow that plan. On the square stands the town hall, a former palace of the Habsburg governors, with a beautifully carved Renaissance balcony from which proclamations were read, and its belfry is part of the UNESCO list of belfries in Belgium and France.
Read the complete Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Terril 34.
6. back through Terril 34
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 34 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Terril 34 comes up about 169 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d.
7. back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 205 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d. Next is back through Terril 140.
8. back through Terril 140
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Terril 140 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Terril 140, late in the day. Next is Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle.
9. 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
The route ends here after 269 km.
Leg by leg
Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle to Terril 140
Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle → Terril 140 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 140 to Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d
Terril 140 → Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d to Terril 34
Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d → Terril 34 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Terril 34 to Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin
Terril 34 → Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin to back through Terril 34
Beffroi de l’Hôtel de Ville d’Hesdin → back through Terril 34 is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 34 to back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d
back through Terril 34 → back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d to back through Terril 140
back through Monument aux morts et grilles de la cité d → back through Terril 140 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Terril 140 to Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle
back through Terril 140 → Cités Chabaud-Latour ancienne et nouvelle is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.