Estaimpuis (Municipality, Province of Hainaut, Belgium)

Steenput

Last modified: 2005-12-24 by ivan sache
Keywords: estaimpuis | steenput | cross (red) | lions: 4 (red) |
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Municipal flag of Estaimpuis - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 6 June 2005

• Presentation of Estaimpuis and its villages
• Municipal flag of Estaimpuis

See also:

• Belgium
• Province of Hainaut: Municipal flags
• Belgium: Municipal flags

Presentation of Estaimpuis and its villages

The municipality of Estaimpuis (9,408 inhabitants; 3,176 ha) is located in the west of Hainaut, between Tournai and Mouscron, on the border with France. It is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Bailleul (559 inh., 415 ha), Estaimbourg (1,289 inh., 400 ha), Estaimpuis (2,557 inh., 318 ha), Evregnies (903 inh., 383 ha), Leers-Nord (1,526 inh., 405 ha), Néchin (2,053 inh., 708 ha) and Saint-Léger (701 inh., 536 ha).

Bailleul is a rural village dating at least back to the XIIth century. The parish church, dedicated to St. Amand, apostle of Flanders, was built with rubble stones from Tournai in Gothic style in the XIII-XIVth century. It was restored in 1910 and 1974, and is still the place of a pilgrimage.

Estaimbourg was called in the XIIth century Stainabourg (lit., the stone castle). The castle built in the beginning of the XIIth century and trashed twice; in 1854, Charles de Bourgogne, Mayor of Estaimbourg from 1835 to 1886 built the Castle of Bourgogne near the site of the ancient castle.

Estaimpuis (in Dutch, Steenput) was probably also named after the stones. It is possible that building stone was extracted in the past; it was also said that tin (in French, étain; in Dutch, tinnen) was extracted in Estaimpuis. The village was crossed by the railway line Herseaux-Avelgem, inaugurated in 1881, abandoned in 1960 and demolished in 1970; it is still crossed by the Canal of Espierre, then important for tourism and transport of goods across the border with France. The small river Espierre takes its source in France west of Tourcoing and flows into the Scheldt in Spiere in Flanders (called Espierre in France; I guess that the river also has two names). The Canal of Espierres was built in 1884 between Marcq-en-Baroeul, a few kilometers north of Lille and Spiere; it allows communication between the basin of Scheldt and Lys.
The soap factory Lefèbvre-Fourez employed some 30 workers in Estaimpuis in 1953; it was purchased in 1964 by the Tensia group, which transformed it in a main European producer of detergents, with 230 workers. The factory is owned today by Yplon.

Evregnies is known for the Roman St. Vaast's church (XIth century) and for clog-making. The oldest known clog-maker in Evregnies is François Leplat, who settled there before 1800. His daughter Joséphine married the clog-maker Dolphens, from Bossuyt (France). The family business increased until the end of the Second World War; in 1950, 1,400 pairs of clogs were sold, but only 400 in 1963, when the Desutter workshop, one of the most famous in the region, was closed. In order to maintain the tradition, the Desutter clog-making was purchased by the Folklore Museum "Léon Maes" and a Clog's Festival was organized in Evregnies from 1979 to 1995.

Leers-Nord was named after the German word leer, empty, uncultivated. The village was divided along the Belva street into two twin villages, Leers-North and Leers-South. Under the Ancient Regime, Leers depended on the Bishopric of Tournai but most of the village was ran by the châtellenie of Lille; the borders between the Tournaisis and Lille were extremely complex and caused a lot of trouble to the villagers; in 1671, the parish priest complained because he needed a safe-conduct to visit some of his parishioners. During the epidemics, some parts of the village were quarantined whereas other were not. In 1769, it was decided to officially split Leers beetween the Kingdom of France and the Empire of Austria. The Borders Treaty eventually signed in 1781 allocated the whole village to France, but all the problems were not solved yet. The inhabitants of the villages neighbouring Mouscron complained to the government of the Low Countries because they could no longer go to Tournai, since they had to cross Belva, which was in France. Louis XVI sent a commissionner to retrocede 276 bonniers (a local surface unit) to the Empress. Accurate measurement of the bonniers was not easy, and Leers was split again only in 1790. The borders were fixed in 1819. The Belgian village has kept the name of Leers-Nord whereas the French one is simply called Leers. Leers-Nord and Leers are officially twinned since 14 September 1986.

Néchin is known for the ruins of the castle of la Royère, located in the middle of arable fields. In old French, a royère was a limit (a royer was a furrow). The castle of la Royère is the last remaiing examples of the small fortresses built in the plains in the XIIIth century to watch the border; it was surrounded by a ten-angle wall made in stone from Tournai and protected by towers and bartizans. The castle was built in the first half of the XIIIth century by Arnould IV van Oudenaarde, Baillif of Flanders and Hainaut, probably on the site of an earlier donjon (X-XIth century).