Return to the port by the first (very wide) street on the right, which leads to the Ostend Road Bridge across the Yser. To the right of the bridge are the Nieuport locks which served, during the War, to inundate the surrounding country, being opened at high water and closed at low water (see photo, p. [50]).
Lombartzyde. Avenue de la Reine, before the War (Photo Nels.)
From Nieuport to Ostend.
1½ kms. further on, the tourist reaches the site on which Lombartzyde used to stand (2 kms.); the scarcely visible ruins are now overrun with grass and weeds. A few huts and a wooden church have recently been built.
Lombartzyde (the Lombards' Corner) owed its name and prosperity to the merchants and bankers, many of them Lombards, who settled there in the Middle-Ages. The town was, however, soon deserted in favour of Nieuport. Its large plain church, of no particular interest, contained a statue of the Virgin, much venerated by the fisher-people, who often visited it in the summer-time. Lombartzyde, formerly a sea-port, was later cut off from the sea by the Dunes, and Lombartzyde-Bains—the seaside portion of the town—grew up there. The steam-trams running between Nieuport and Ostend may be taken to reach it.
Lombartzyde. Avenue de la Reine, in 1919. (See photo above.)