Fortifications and ramparts to visit Nord-Pas-de-Calais

Built by Pierre Raoul in 1620, under the golden age of the Spanish occupation, the Ghent Gate, which was renamed to the Revolution, is a building often ignored but tells a lot about the history of the great capital of the North. While peace and prosperity prevail in the city, it is enlarged for the fifth time by strengthening its defences. The city is surrounded by doors and ramparts. This explains the severe aspect of the exterior facade of the door that was made to impress the enemy. Its interior facade, turned to the city, is much more worked with a high roof roof and windows framed with stone cords. At the beginning, the door consisted only of one central passage, which was added two side arcades in 1875 to allow the passage of the tramway that legend until 1963. Today the Ghent Gate is partly occupied by the restaurant La Terrasse des Remparts, but it still serves as a starting point for discovering the city walls and the vast Winston Churchill Plain. The attached ramparts are the subject of a restoration programme implemented by the city with a rehabilitation structure and a project for the development of the garden in the bottom is under way. The history of the Ghent Door is not finished.