Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

At the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Count of Flanders Baudouin II built a first ring-shaped urban enclosure, surrounded by a ditch. This primitive defensive system was completed in 1021 by Count Baudouin IV, who established a fortified structure on the Groenberg hill in the east, housing from 1022 St.Winoc Abbey. At the end of the 13th or early 14th century, Count Guy de Dampierre enlarged the perimeter with a second enclosure encompassing the first, reflecting the expansion of the medieval city.

Under the Dukes of Burgundy (1st half of the 15th century), the enclosure was reinforced by semi-circular towers and extended to integrate the Abbey of Saint-Winoc. The take of Bergues by the French in 1558 marked a turning point: the section between the Neckerstor and Cassel's gate was bastioned. After the definitive annexation by France in 1668, Vauban led important works (1674–79), including the construction of the Saint-Winoc crown, a bastioned front replacing the medieval enclosure around the abbey. The 17th and 18th centuries saw the addition of dreads (Fort Rabbit, Fort Suisse) and half moons, followed in the 19th century by restorations, such as the creation of the Bierne crown (1850–54).

The present enclosure, classified as Historic Monument in 1936, preserves twelve towers (including the Neckertor Tower and the Guy Tower of Dampierre), four doors (Cassel, Bierne, Dunkirk, Hondschoote), as well as bastions, ditches and glacis. The projects of strong peripherals (White House, Quaëdypre, Socx, Pitgam, Watten) were never realized, but existing dreads, such as those of Fort Rabbit to the north, bear witness to the strategic adaptations to the conflicts of the 17th-19th centuries. Its architecture combines bricks (partments) and stone (angles of bastions), with internal earth embankments, characteristic of the flandrian fortifications.

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