121. The Helpe Mineure in Fourmies .

This photo is taken not very far away from the Ecomusée of Fourmies. The greater bridge in the background is the one under the road which leads to the museum, but when you are on the road you do not see the bridge and you think you were on a normal road. From this bridge until the other side of the midtown the river is almost always in the underground especially on the mean place, named by the people "Place Verte" or green place.

The water of the Helpe Mineure flows from the East to the West, also it flows here from the greater bridge to the bridge where I took the photo. In this part of the town there are small streets called "montées", which are leading high to the Street St Louis, the main shopping street of the town. There are stairs in the "montées" to go to the main street, the Street St Louis, which is the shopping street of Fourmies.

The little bridges which you can see across the river lead to gardens and garages which are in the back of the houses. Without these numerous bridges, people couldn't go to their garages and gardens.

On the right side of the picture (but left edge of the river) it goes always upwards to the school district with the main high schools (private, St Pierre and public Camille Claudel) of the town.

In the valley between the hills of Fourmies, we find the Ecomusee (museum for industrial and town life in the two last centuries (19th and 20th), the Place Verte with the town-hall, which is also the Market Place and a good parking, when there's no market.

On the left side of the valley of the Helpe Mineure where we are on this picture (and on the right edge of the river...) , it goes high to the town district of Trieux, which is a town district with many poor workless people. In the fact, the crisis of the wool industry in the sixties/seventies when synthetic fibres replace the natural fibres, made the people workless and now it's always so.

Fourmies had 15 000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 20th century and exported wool in the whole world and one century later, it has only 13 000 inhabitants, so it has lost 2000 inhabitants in one century. But Fourmies is proud of its industrial past.

At this plave, where is the river there were in the industrial past a water mill and a glas factory "La verrerie Blanche". In the "Verrerie Blanche" (white glas factory) they made white glas for glases and house and in the "Verrerie Noire"(black glas factory), higher in the town they made bottles which are made the most time of coloured glas. Now, there is no more glas factory, but a glas museum in a neighbour town, Trélon.

Thank you to our friend Pierre, a fan of archeology, who tell Perle de Rosée about the history of Fourmies and said here where is the place with the the old water-mill of the old white glas factory (this place on the photo).

(posted on the 1:12 AM, June 18th, 2006).

(with additions on the 31th July 2006).

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The virtual travel of Perle de Rosée.

Now, we are sailing on our virtual ship though the Pacific and we are visiting first the North Pacific, where we are finding the ISLES of Hawai, in Honolulu, where lives Nicolas who has just an outage with his computer. So, while we are waiting that it is repaired, we can look at the ancient photos of his blog.

To-day, (it means the 18th June) I discovered another site of Honolulu by Kala, in O'ahu. I give to you the link here. (29th July). (added on 31th JulyNow, on the same adress we find Nicolas and Dana).

Perle de rosée, June 18th, 2006, 11:31PM.

Fourmies