only in public buildings and palaces, but in the ordinary domestic architecture of mediæval Bruges. Indeed, at the opening of the fifteen hundreds, as Mark Gheeraert’s map bears witness, Bruges was a city of steeples. They have, however, for the most part disappeared, and those that have come down to us can be almost counted on the fingers. The old mansion in the rue aux laines, to which we have just called attention, possesses, as we have seen, one. It is at the back of the house, and the summit alone is visible from the street. A stone’s throw from it, on the further bank of the Roya, hard-by the Quai du Rosaire, there is another—a beautiful, red brick, dilapidated structure, crowned with a silvery steeple, the last tower erected in mediæval Bruges. Those in the rue des Aiguilles we have already noted. There is a fifth in the Place Memlinc, very tall and very slender, octagonal in shape and wholly devoid of ornament. When the Smyrna Consuls, who dwelt in the house to which it is an adjunct, first erected it, it was not so comely as it is to-day. The waxing and waning of four hundred summers and the rude embraces of wind and weather have marvellously beautified it, and the blushing brick of which it is constructed is now all shot with gold. Close by, in the Place des Biscayens, there is another and a more stately tower of grey stone. It stands alongside of the Poorters Logie, a sort of mediæval club-house where the burghers in days gone by were wont to hold convivial meetings. There is a seventh and very beautiful tower on the ramparts at the end of the rue des Carmes. It adorns the home of the great military guild of St. Sebastian. There is an eighth by the École Normale, a mere ruin, the last remnant of the habitation of a kindred society—the Crossbowmen of St. George and St. Denis. It is a great square tower of red brick, which originally was considerably higher than it is at present, and it contains a very curious stone staircase with a beautiful groined ceiling. This building is the property of the town, and the corporation intend to restore it and convert it into a clock-tower for the École Normale and furnish it with a carillon.
The list of ancient turreted mansions in Bruges is completed by the Hôtel Gruthuise. Here are two octagonal towers, one of them of considerable dimensions and no less curious than pleasing.
It will be interesting to note that the taste for towers has recently revived in the city of Bruges. At least five new buildings are provided with them, nor do they compare unfavourably with some of the work of the builders of former days. Notably the red brick tower of the Académie in the rue Ste. Cathérine, from the designs of Monsieur de Wolf, who at present occupies the position of city architect, and the station clock-tower, of which the steeple is a reproduction in miniature of the glorious steeple which once crowned the Belfry.
As for the material employed by the ancient architects of Bruges, it was chiefly brick, not the smooth, fine grained, sharp edged kiln brick beloved of the modern English builder, but beautiful, rough surfaced, clamp brick, for the most part small in dimensions, in hue sometimes red, sometimes what is technically called white, more often parti-coloured, always fair to look on, exceedingly durable, and in some cases carved like stone. No less pleasing were the tiles and slates with which they roofed their buildings, the former flat, oblong, ruddy, of slender dimensions, the latter of similar shape but not quite so small, and their colour! grey, purple, green, and, when the sun shines on them, silver shot with gold. Go up into the Belfry on some glad summer’s morning, look down on the ancient roofs of Bruges, and thou shalt not regret it.