WHAT THE GERMAN SHELLS LEFT OF IT (see above)
YPRES. RUINS OF THE CLOTH HALL, SEEN FROM ST. MARTIN'S CATHEDRAL.
FRAGMENTS OF THE LATTER ARE VISIBLE IN THE FOREGROUND
THE CLOTH HALL AND THE NIEUWERK
The Cloth Hall, containing extensive warehouses, in which the sale of cloth was carried on, was built in the 13th and 14th centuries. It consisted of a series of buildings grouped around a rectangular court. The Hall proper was distinguished from a building called the Nieuwerk, added in the 17th century. The southern building of the hall had a magnificent façade, flanked on the east by the gable of the Nieuwerk and surmounted by a large belfry in the centre. Bold turrets stood at both ends of this façade. Rather spare in ornament, the long succession of glazed and blind windows constituted the grandeur of the façade. On the ground-floor, which was lighted by a row of quatrefoil windows in pointed arches, there were forty-eight rectangular doors.
Above these doors were the high windows of the upper storey, the Hall having two floors. These windows were alternately glazed and blind—a method frequently adopted in the Middle Ages, to avoid weakness in the walls, without detracting from the symmetry of the exterior. This storey was reached by staircases, access to which was gained through doors at each end of the façade.
The glazed windows were decorated with three trefoils supported on two arches. The blind windows were similar to the windows of the ground-floor, except that the latter were less lofty. The two arches formed niches, each of which contained a statue: that of a Count of Flanders (the Counts and Countesses from Baudoin Bras-de-Fer to Charles Quint were represented) or of a notable citizen of Ypres, such as Melchior Broederlam, the painter. These statues, some of which were restored in the 19th century, rested on a corbel apparently supported by a small figure bearing the coat-of-arms of the sovereign represented.