Last modified: 2007-11-03 by ivan sache
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The municipality of Comblain-au-Pont (5,366 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 2,268 ha) is located in the region of Condroz, 20 km south of Liè;ge, near the confluency of the rivers Amblève and the Ourthe. The municipality of Comblain-au-Pont is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Comblain-au-Pont and Poulseur.
Comblain-au-Pont was named after the Latin confluens, "a confluency". The
village belonged in the past to the Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy.
Every summer, the municipality organizes a sculpture's symposium in the
Sculpture Outdoors Museum. Comblain is also famous for its caves. The
Abyss Cave, found by chance in 1902, is a 22-m vertical abyss that
opens on a series of wide rooms decorated with several concretions. In
1994, a new, less dangerous access to the room was set up and the cave
was reopened to the public. The Comblain Cave was not made by an
undergournd river but by the action of surface water inflitration
through cracks known as chantoirss and dissolving by phreatic water.
Ten rooms of the cave are open to the public.
During the Ancient Regime, Poulseur was divided into the three domains
of Poulseur-sous-Rahier (Poulseur-Bas), Poulseur-sous-Renardstein and
the Avouerie of Sart, all belonging to the abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy.
Poulseur became an independent municipality on 9 June 1884; it then
has hardly 50 houses. Poulseur became then a big village thanks to the
quarries, with some 1,500 workers, the saw mill, the stone mill, the
kiln oven and the marshalling yard. Several Italian, Portuguese and
Spanish workers employed in the quarries settled in the village, which
had 1,300 inhabitants in 1916. The People's House (Maison du Peuple)
of Poulseur was inaugurated on 3 September 1922, replacing the former
People's House destroyed by the Germans on 6 August 1914. The House was
funded by the workers' cooperative of Sprimont, founded in 1892, which had merged with the cooperative union of Liège. In 1925, a Royal Decree
recognized the Fédération Mutuelle des Ouvriers de la Pierre
(Friendly Society of the Stone Workers), which was presided by Hubert
Lapaille until 1980. From the Second World War to 1961, the Society was
managed by Floréal Fagothier-Sevrin, Mayor of Poulseur and one of the
first women elected Mayor in Belgium.
The tower of Poulseur, aka Reinardstein, was built by Eustache II de
Many (1250-1302) in 1292-1302 alle cruppe desseur Posseur (on the
hill above Poulseur), to watch the valley of Ourthe. This is a square
(9 m), six-floor tower of 19.50 m in height. A companion castle was
located across the Ourthe, and was destroyed during digging in the
Montfort quarry. A legend says that a souterrain linked the two
castles.
Sources:
Ivan Sache, 8 June 2007
According to Armoiries communales en Belgique. Communes wallonnes, bruxelloises et germanophones, there is no municipal flag used in Comblain-au-Pont.
Pascal Vagnat, 8 June 2007
