Fourth Day.
FROM BRUGES TO POPERINGHE, NEAR YPRES.
Lunch at Dixmude, but provide luncheon baskets, in case of need.
Leaving the Grand'Place, Bruges, via the Place du Marché-aux Œufs, take Rue de la Monnaie, on the left, then Rue Nord du Sablon, and beyond the station and level-crossing, Rue du Maréchal. Go through the Porte Maréchale which, like the Ostend Gate, bears traces of its 17th century restoration (Photo, p. [113]).
At the fork, 1 km. further on, take the right-hand road to St-André. Pass through same, then through Varssenaere, Jabbeke, Westkerke and Ghistelles. Beyond Ghistelles (level-crossing), take the Ostend-Thourout road, on the left. Pass through Moerdijck (24½ kms.), and on reaching the hamlet of Halve-Barreel, turn to the right.
Maréchale Gate, by which the tourist leaves Bruges.
At the first group of houses turn to the right, then to the left at the first fork. At the first house of the hamlet of Leugenboom (3½ kms.), take the foot-path on the right, from which, 150 yards to the left, can be seen the Pommern or Leugenboom Battery, at the edge of the wood. This battery comprises a 15in. long range gun, which did most of the bombarding of Dunkirk. The gun, protected by armour, is mounted on a steel bridge having a pivot in front, the rear part of the gun travelling along a circular rail-track in a concrete pit nearly 70 feet in diameter. The gun was manœuvred by means of electric motors. On either side are large shelters in reinforced concrete. In front of and below the platform there was an electric generator group. A large shelter of reinforced concrete, on the right, was probably the Post of Commandment. There is a dummy gun emplacement further on.
