|
Places
to visit |
Local
area map
| |
|
|
Fourmies |
    1. Now a peaceful country town 2. The local forest. 3. Lakes created in the forest as mill-ponds 4. The Duc de Croy's chateau at Condé-sur-l'Escaut - iron was mined on the Duc's huge estates. |
|
|
Fourmies forest - cradle
of industry Other lakes were created in the 17th century by local monks from Liessies Abbey for watermills to grind cereals, for flour and animal feed. France's industrial development in the mid-19th century killed these small iron-works. Steam engines superceded waterwheels. Larger furnaces nearer to canals and coal-mines drove the forges in the hills out of business - now all that's left is the ponds. |
|
|
19th century textile mills - now a lively museum |
|
   5. Men, women and children worked long hours in Fourmies textile mills in the 19th century. 6. 1st May 1891 Textile workers strike - 7. ...famous for ending in a massacre of workers by troops in the square outside Fourmies church - gave France the May Day holiday. |
|
|
In the early 19th century, the same sources of waterpower made Fourmies a good spot for some of France's first woollen and cotton spinning mills. Like the Pennine mill-towns in the valleys of Lancashire and Yorkshire, Formies became the centre of the French woollen industry, until the industrial crisis of the early 1950's. The last traces of the Industrial revolution in this area are preserved in the Ecomusée - with 9 different museum sites. |
|
  8. The last of the old mills has become Fourmies Museum of Textiles & Social Life. 9. Textile machines at the Textile Museum |
|
|
Les Etangs des Moines |
|
  10. Signed walks, horse-rides and cycle-trails in the forest. 11. Hire-boats and watersports on les Etangs des Moines (the Monks' Lakes) in the forest . |
|
Weblinks
and more information: |
|
Office de Tourisme de Fourmies: |
