Poperinge

Poperinge is the centre of Belgian hop growing, and the fields around it carry the tall wirework frames the plants climb, with a harvest in September and a hop festival every third year. The Hop Museum occupies the old municipal weighing house and covers the crop, the trade and the brewing that depends on it. The town was just behind the front line in the First World War and became a rest and supply centre, and Talbot House, an officers' and men's club opened in 1915 by an army chaplain in a merchant's house, survives with its rooms, chapel in the loft, piano and furnishings largely as they were, run as a museum and guesthouse. The contrast between the two subjects is the character of a visit.

History

Neolithic finds show early settlement, under the Romans a road linked the place to the route from Cassel to Aardenburg, and in Frankish times, as Pupurningahem, it was given to the abbey of Saint Omer in the mid-7th century. Count Dietrich of Alsace granted a charter in 1147, the town thrived on cloth, adding the churches of Saint John and Our Lady to Saint Bertin's in 1290, and when Count Louis de Nevers banned cloth making outside Ypres in 1322 its citizens joined the revolt of the next year and kept finding ways round the ban, earning the nickname keikoppen, cobble-heads, first recorded in 1341 (Wikipedia, Poperinge).

What you'll find

• The Hop Museum - the crop and trade in the old weighing house.
• Hop fields and wire frames - the plants climbing in the country around.
• Talbot House - a wartime club kept with its rooms and loft chapel.
• The September harvest - the hop picking that fills the town.

When to go

April to September, with the hop harvest in September and the triennial festival in mid-September. Half a day. Talbot House and the museum both close on some weekdays. The hop fields are best in late summer.

Things to know

Both museums are small. Talbot House can be busy with organised groups. Interpretation is largely in Dutch and English. The town is otherwise ordinary. The hop festival happens only every three years.

Nearby

Ypres is east; the French border lies west.

Key facts