Arras

Arras grew rich on cloth and its two linked squares, the Grand'Place and the Place des Heros, are lined with a hundred and fifty-five Flemish Baroque houses on arcades, each with a curved gable, built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Almost all of it was destroyed in the First World War and rebuilt to the original designs afterwards. Beneath the town run chalk quarries worked since the medieval period, which New Zealand tunnellers extended in 1916 into a network housing twenty-four thousand troops before the Battle of Arras; part is open as the Carriere Wellington, with soldiers' inscriptions still on the walls.

History

Stone tools of the Mousterian culture have been found at Mont-Saint-Vaast in Arras. The Belgic Atrebates founded the town on the hill of Baudimont as Nemetocenna, named after a sacred grove, and under the Romans, as Nemetacum, it was an important garrison town, renowned in the 4th century for its textiles, with one of the rare sanctuaries of Attis in France; it was taken and destroyed by Germanic invaders in 406-407. Saint Vaast became its first bishop in 499, and in 667 Saint Aubert founded the Abbey of Saint Vaast, which grew into an immensely rich Benedictine house around which the medieval town spread as a grain market. By 843 Arras was the seat of the County of Artois, which passed to the royal domain in 1191 (Wikipedia, Arras).

The main sights

• The two squares - a hundred and fifty-five arcaded Flemish Baroque houses.
• Carriere Wellington - the tunnels that hid twenty-four thousand troops.
• The soldiers' graffiti - names and drawings cut into the chalk underground.
• The belfry - the rebuilt tower climbed for a view over the squares.

When to go

April to October; the tunnels are a constant eleven degrees and need a warm layer whatever the season. The Christmas market fills the squares in December.

Good to know

The squares are a faithful post-war rebuild, not original fabric. The tunnel visit is guided, timed and cold, and books out. Parking on the squares limits the view on market days.

Nearby

Vimy Ridge lies north; Lens is northeast.

Key facts