Tourists arriving by the N. 29, enter Bapaume through the suburb of Arras, where turn to the right. Cross the railway (l.c.), coming out at the Place Faidherbe, via the Rue d'Arras.
To commemorate General Faidherbe's victory over the Germans near Bapaume on January 3, 1871, a bronze statue was erected in the Place Faidherbe. This statue was carried off by the Germans, and when the British entered the town in 1917, they found it had mockingly been replaced by an enormous stove-pipe.
In the Place Faidherbe, at the corner of the Rue d'Arras, stood the Hôtel-de-Ville, an interesting building dating from the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on the ground-floor of which was a porch formed by a series of arcades.
In 1917, the Germans set fire to it, previous to evacuating the town. On March 25, one week later, a formidable explosion, caused by a bomb with retarded fuse, destroyed all that had been spared by the fire. Two members of the French Parliament were found dead under the ruins of the building.
Take the Rue de Péronne, on the right of the Place, then the Rue de l'Eglise, on the right, which leads to St. Nicholas Church.
The Church of St. Nicholas was a large fifteenth and sixteenth century pile, with three naves, whose ruins to-day are most impressive. The belfry has completely disappeared, while all that remains of the body are broken, gaping fragments of the outside walls, a few pillars of the nave and several vaulted bays of the aisles.
Return to the Rue de Péronne, at the end of which are The Promenades. On the right are the ancient ramparts; a fairly high eminence, near by, was used as an observation-post for the artillery (pretty view over the town).
See photo below.