2023-09-23 18:48:00
Established on either side of the meanders of the Eastern Ourthe, Houffalize is located between Bastogne, La Roche-en-Ardenne, Vielsalm and Gouvy, and part of its territory is on the border with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . It has seven sections: Houffalize, Mont, Tailles, Wibrin, Mabompré, Nadrin and Tavigny, to which must be added twenty-two hamlets.
In terms of heritage, the town is not left out, because it has twenty monuments and classified sites while 288 properties are listed in the inventory of cultural real estate, a considerable number for a rural town! Let’s discover a few selected pieces, all classified.
The Sainte-Catherine church and the old cemetery of Houffalize. Still remarkable at the beginning of the 20th century, the locality of feudal origin of Houffalize was truly reduced to ashes during the terrible Battle of the Ardennes, in December 1944. The Sainte-Catherine church is one of the rare remaining witnesses of this martyred past.
In 1243, the Augustinian canons of the priory of Val des Écoliers de Liège established themselves in a meander of the Ourthe. In the 13th and 14th centuries, they built a one-nave church in primary Gothic style, made of sandstone rubble under a slate roof. The old cemetery, at its foot, has an undeniable charm. There you can admire an impressive series of high-quality schist slabs, commemorating notable people of the city.
Sainte-Catherine Church. ©photo Vincent Rocher SPW-AWaP
The Saint-Blaise church of Vellereux (Mabompré). In the center of the hamlet, it was probably built around 1700 in schist rubble. Giving pride of place to traditional Ardennes architecture, it fits into its environment: the walls were built on a simple device, without corner chain or particular bay framing. To the west, we find a tower barely engaged in the masonry of the vessel.
To the north of it is an arched entrance whose door is decorated with a star-patterned panel. The tower is pierced with rare small openings on its north and south faces. Then, there is a nave of three bays lit by lowered arched windows.
The tower of the old Saint-Urbain church in Dinez (Mont). The old church, located in the heart of a walled cemetery, has now almost completely disappeared. Only the tower remains, built in 1755 and today isolated in the middle of the field of the dead.
At its foot, ancient funerary crosses have been grouped together. All of these monuments are of good quality and testify to the quality of the work of the Ottré workshops, of which the Piette, Servais and Georis families are the best-known craftsmen. Present from father to son throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, they worked shale from generation to generation.
The Notre-Dame de Forêt chapel. This exceptional country chapel, a centrally planned building erected in 1755, combines the baroque style for the exterior and rococo for the interior. The whole is accessed through a porch added in 1759. Open and square in plan, it is surrounded by Tuscan columns topped with a slate dome of octagonal section, a blind skylight and a bulbous cap under a wrought iron aigrette with the monogram of the Virgin.
Next comes the chapel itself, protected by a high and elegant hexagonal imperial slate cap, decorated by cutting slates, many of which date from the 18th century. The rich interior decor, in the Rococo-Louis XV style, commands admiration and astonishment. With its rockeries enlivening the paneling and its refined woodwork, the decoration, the work of Nicolas Mathieu de Salm and his son Guillaume, carpenters and sculptors, is treated with a real concern for virtuosity.
The Saint-Jacques chapel in Fontenaille (Mont). The site of this tiny town is absolutely beautiful. A place of worship already mentioned in the 12th century, the Saint-Jacques chapel, located in the middle of a walled cemetery, was rebuilt in 1700. It is a single-aisle building made of coated and whitened shale rubble. To the west, there is a two-story tower placed under a short slate spire.
Fontenaille: Saint-Jacques chapel. ©photo Vincent Rocher SPW-AWaP
Next comes the three-bay vessel, lit by low-arched windows. The sanctuary is enclosed by a semi-circular apse and protected by a slate roof. Surrounded by its cemetery, it gives an undeniable touch of charm to the landscape.
The Ollomont site (Nadrin). Established on a rocky outcrop at a high point in the village and occupying the axis of a remarkable elliptical cemetery walled in schist, Sainte-Marguerite is a vestige of the parish church built in the 12th century. Since 1909 and the destruction of almost the entire building, it has once again become a simple cemetery chapel. The groin-vaulted choir and its annexes remain.
The choir tower, square in plan, undoubtedly lower than originally, surmounts the right bay. Its characteristic silhouette makes it the only example of its kind preserved in the province of Luxembourg. In addition to the chapel, the site is home to one of the most touching and delightful cemeteries in the region. In this enclosure a very homogeneous funerary complex is in fact preserved. The fact that the field of the dead was decommissioned allowed the site to retain an aura of serenity and rare simplicity.
Below, we discover the old presbytery. Located back from the road, behind a garden enclosed by low walls, it is a very beautiful rubble building protected by an artificial slate frame. At the foot of the church mound, next to the old presbytery, the Wilkin house is the third listed nugget in the hamlet. Leaning against the schist wall of the old cemetery, this old farm building was built from sandstone and schist rubble. It is protected by a wall of cherbins, large slates with partially rounded contours, a typical material of the region.
The Jacqmin farm in Filly (Nadrin). As traditionally in central Ardennes, this farm is a low and wide single-volume divided into cells serving as a gable dwelling, then a stable and a barn. The establishment of the farm seems to date from the middle of the 18th century and its belonging to the Jacqmin family dates back to 1838. The schist construction is entirely white-limed and is completed by two small annexes at the back of the courtyard, also limed, which house a bakery and a sheepfold. A sloping garden borders the main building to the east. The bays of the south gable are distributed into four bays of windows on two levels. The traditional roof which covers the farm is here also made of cherbins.
The castle and the farm of the Château de Tavigny are, with the church, the three listed buildings in the village. ©photo Vincent Rocher SPW-AWaP
Tavigny and its treasures. The center of the village is home to three listed monuments: the castle, its farm and its religious building, dedicated to Saint Remy. It is a typical old Ardennes church, located at the top of a grassy slope. The tower is dated 1736 and it can be assumed that the entire sanctuary was erected at the same time. Almost blind, it is topped by an octagonal slate spire and pierced, on its north face, with an arched portal in slate schist.
This leads to the three-bay single-vessel vessel, lit by high arched windows. The castle complex, built of schist rubble under slate roofs, developed gradually until the 18th century. The general system has three main parts: a 13th century keep, a ring of buildings surrounded by cylindrical towers and the farmhouse with outbuildings rebuilt against the west side in the 18th century. The imposing farm is made up of a massive main building with an almost square plan, dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.
DISCOVER THE REGION
The tourist office welcomes you every day to help you discover the region’s rich tourist offerings. Please note: the organization of a monthly walk to discover rural heritage. The next one will take place on October 15 in Engreux.
INFOS
Place de Janvier 45/2 in 6660 Houffalize
+32 (0)61 28 81 16
1695609372
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