Belfry of Bruges
Belfort van Brugge
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- The belfry's mechanical music drum, which plays tunes on the bells every quarter hour, is described as the largest still-working carillon drum in the world.
- The great swinging bell, Maria, also called the Triumph Bell, was cast in 1680 by Melchior de Haze, weighs around 6 tonnes and is about 2.06 metres wide.
- The Triumph Bell is reserved for rare occasions such as the King's birthday rather than marking the ordinary hours.
- By 1675 the tower already held a carillon of 35 bells, also cast by Melchior de Haze of Antwerp.
- From 1604 the city paid official carillonneurs to play for the townspeople on Sundays, holidays and market days, a tradition that continues today.
- In 2010 the 21 smallest bells, cast in 1939 and 1969, were replaced with new ones by the Dutch bell foundry Eijsbouts.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow devoted a poem, The Belfry of Bruges, to the tower, opening with its place in the market square.
- The tower also turns up in literature far from Flanders, being mentioned in David Mitchell's 2004 novel Cloud Atlas.
Why it is worth it
The Belfry of Bruges has watched over the Markt since around 1240, when the city was one of the great cloth-trading centres of northern Europe. It was the town's strongbox and alarm bell in one: the charters and seals that guaranteed Bruges its privileges were kept in its treasury, and watchmen looked out from the top for fires and approaching danger. Its tower stands above a long former market hall, 44 metres wide and 84 metres deep, around an inner courtyard.
Fire shaped its silhouette. A blaze in 1280 destroyed the upper part and the city archives with it. The octagonal top stage was added between 1483 and 1487, but lightning burned its wooden spire in 1493, and a later spire burned again in 1741 and was never replaced. The tower lost nearly 20 metres in the process and now stands 83 metres tall, finished since 1822 with an openwork Gothic Revival parapet — and it leans about 87 centimetres to the east.
A steep, narrow staircase of 366 steps leads to the top. On the way up you pass the old treasury, the large drum that plays the carillon automatically, and the keyboard used by the city carillonneur. The carillon of 47 bells weighs around 27.5 tonnes; many of them were cast by Joris Dumery after the fire of 1741, and 26 of his bells still ring. Carillon concerts are held on several days each week. From the summit there are panoramic views over the whole medieval city.
The belfry is inscribed by UNESCO twice over, as part of the Belfries of Belgium and France and within the historic centre of Bruges. Film lovers know it from "In Bruges" (2008), and every Wednesday a market fills the square at its foot.
Getting there
The belfry stands on the Markt in the centre of Bruges. Ostend-Bruges International Airport (OST) is about 25 km away; most international travellers arrive via the Brussels airports and continue by train.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Belfry of Bruges is a medieval bell tower in the centre of Bruges, Belgium. One of the city's most prominent symbols, the belfry formerly housed a treasury and the municipal archives and served as an observation post for spotting fires and other dangers.
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