En un regard
Le château en bref
A border town on the River Lys, Menin received its first ramparts in 1578. During the Dutch Revolt against Spain, Calvinist leaders from Ghent had earth walls, ditches and palisades built there. Exposed to sieges and plunder after the resumption of war in 1621, the town saw its walls razed in 1664. Becoming French under the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678), it was transformed by Vauban from 1679 into a first-rank fortress. The engineer retained the old trace on the left bank, enlarged the bastions and fortified the right bank, which had until then been left open. Work continued until 1689. A Dutch garrison town under the Barrier regime from 1715, Menin was retaken by Louis XV in 1744, who had the outworks demolished but left the foundations in place. After the Barrier was abolished by Joseph II in 1782, the Kingdom of the Netherlands rebuilt the ramparts on Vauban's foundations between 1817 and 1830. The concentration of Belgian defence on Antwerp led, from 1852, to the sale of the land and the gradual disappearance of the ramparts. What survives are curtain walls, bastions and casemates in red and yellow brick, in the ter Walle park, along Rue de Lille (Rijselstraat) and along the Oude Leielaan.
