Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders

by George Wharton Edwards

Nieuport

In the midst of a level field to the east of the town of Nieuport in 1914 was a high square weather-beaten tower, somewhat ruinous, built of stone and brick in strata, showing the different eras of construction in the various colors of the brick work ranging from light reds to dark browns and rich blacks. This tower, half built and square topped, belonged to a structure begun in the twelfth century, half monastery, half church, erected by the Templars as a stronghold. Repeatedly attacked and set on fire, it escaped complete destruction, although nearly laid in ruins by the English and burghers of Ghent in 1383, the year of the famous siege of Ypres. During the Wars of 1600, it was an important part of the fortifications, and from the platform of its tower the Spanish garrison commanded a clear view of the surrounding country and the distance beyond the broad moat, which then surrounded the strong walls of Nieuport.

In plain view from this tower top were the houses of Furnes, grouped about the church of Saint Nicolas to the southwest, while to the north the wide belt of dunes, or sand hills, defended the plains from the North Sea. Nearer were the populous villages of Westende and Lombaerd-Zyde, connected with Nieuport by numerous small lakes and canals derived from the channel of the Yser river, which flowed past the town on its way to the sea.

The Tower of the Templars: Nieuport

The history of Nieuport, from the terrible days of the Spanish invasion down to these days of even worse fate, has been pitiable. Its former sea trade after the Spanish invasion was never recovered, and its population, which was beginning to be thrifty and prosperous up to 1914, has now entirely disappeared. Nieuport is now in ashes and ruins. When I passed the day there in the summer of 1910, it was a sleepy, quiet spot, a small fishing village, with old men and women sitting in doorways and on the waysides, mending nets, and knitting heavy woolen socks or sweaters of dark blue. In the small harbor were the black hulls of fishing boats tied up to the quaysides, and a small steamer from Ghoole was taking on a cargo of potatoes and beets. Some barges laden with wood were being pulled through the locks by men harnessed to a long tow rope, and a savage dog on one of these barges menaced me with dripping fangs and bloodshot eyes when I stopped to talk to the steersman, who sat on the tiller smoking a short, evil-smelling pipe, while his "vrouwe" was hanging out a heavy wash of vari-colored garments on a line from the staff on the bow to a sweep fastened upright to the cabin wall.

The ancient fortification had long since disappeared—those "impregnable walls of stone" which once defended the town from the assaults of Philip the Second. I found with some difficulty a few grass-grown mounds where they had been, and only the gray, grim tower of the Templars, standing solitary in a turnip field, remained to show what had been a mighty stronghold. In the town, however, were souvenirs enough to occupy an antiquary for years to his content and profit. There was the Cloth Hall, with its five pointed low arched doorways from which passed in and out the Knights of the Temple gathered for the first pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On this market square too was the great Gothic Church, one of the largest and most important in all Flanders, and on this afternoon in the summer of 1910, I attended a service here, while in the tower a bell ringer played the chime of famous bells which now lie in broken fragments amid the ashes of the fallen tower.

Here was fought the bloody "Battle of the Dunes," between the Dutch and the Spaniards in those dim days of long ago, when the stubborn determination of the Netherlanders overcame the might and fiery valor of the Spanish invaders.

From time to time the peasants laboring in the fields uncovered bones, broken steel breast-plates, and weapons, which they brought to the museum on the Grand' Place, and which the sleepy custode showed me with reluctance, until I offered him a franc. It is curious that famous Nieuport, for which so much blood was shed in those early days, should again have been a famous battle ground between the handful of valiant soldiers of the heroic King Albert and a mighty Teutonic foe.