Auchel, Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France

Auchel, Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, France

Auchel, whose inhabitants are called the Auchellois, is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department, located in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region of France. It is part of the Artois agglomeration community, which includes 58 communes, or 200,000 inhabitants. The town owes its current appearance to mining and industrial activity over the last few centuries.

GEOGRAPHY

With an altitude varying between 68 and 157 m, the commune is located in the Artois region, on a plateau. When you move towards other communes, the relief is different: the communes to the south of Auchel (Marles, Calonne) are less elevated, whereas Lozinghem to the east is higher (hence the name of the town "Mont de Lozinghem"). Situated between the Bois St Pierre to the north, a place of relaxation for the inhabitants of the region, and the Mont de Lozinghem to the east, the commune has seen a development of neighbourhoods synonymous with the coal and textile industries.

At the beginning, it was a small village of a few hundred souls during the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799. The village gradually developed The town gradually developed, with a meteoric growth between 1851 (discovery of the coal deposit) and the First World War, from less than 1,000 inhabitants to around 13,000 inhabitants. The first workers' and miners' housing estate was built at the end of the 1880s, "cité 3", which owes its name to pit 3, the location of which today is a park in rue Casimir-Beugnet (where the Levasseur establishment, which manufactured carpets after the pit closed, was located). Almost completely demolished, housing estate 3 remains a witness to the long horizontal bars of the corons. Today, the last bar is located on rue-des-Écoles, which, according to municipal plans, will be destroyed as part of the restructuring of the district. This district was developed on fields bought by the coalmines to make housing, and the construction plan in several parts resulted in several types of workers' housing: first stuck together in long bars sometimes over 100 m long, and for the more recent constructions, at the bottom towards the slag heap of 3, in blocks of two, like the modern housing estates. At the time, this district extended from the terril du 3 to the once commercial street Rue Florent-Evrard. In 1989, a first wave of destruction of dilapidated housing was initiated, to make way for a cultural complex, the Odeon, and then a sports hall for the Cité scolaire Lavoisier (former large mining offices). In 2005, most of the housing was demolished.

The district of 5 has a different appearance: the houses are made up of two blocks, which are more airy than those of housing estate 3, built at the end of the 1880s. The 5 pit was the largest in Auchel and was at the centre of important services to the population for the miners: the Ste Barbe mine hospital, closed in 2006; the 5 pit school, which became the Chateaubriand school; the Sévigné school, demolished in 2010 to make way for private housing; the goutte de lait (milk drop), a historical monument, was intended for mothers and their babies.

HERITAGE

Places and monuments

• The church of Saint-MartinThe church of Saint-Martin: it dates from the 15th century

• The current town hall dating from the 16th century, the building was used as a boarding school for young girls

• The Mine Museum This is a museum space devoted to the historical, technical, sociological, cultural and heritage aspects of mining.

• The Auchel Pigeon Museum The Auchel Pigeon Museum: moved to the first floor of the Salle Gavroche in February 2010, the museum houses the following collections: rings and constators from the 19th century - spy pigeon release baskets, as well as books and press clippings.

• The mining hospital (Sainte-Barbe)

• The drop of milk

• The former gymnastics hall The former gymnastics hall : it became a festival hall

• The former town hall The former town hall: located on Place Jules-Guesde

• The war memorial The monument to the dead: its particularity lies in the fact that unlike most patriotic sculptures in France (a soldier, revenge), the Auchel monument calls for peace and bears witness to the working class activity of the commune. It is erected in memory of the victims of the First World War.

• The castle (gentilhommière) Following the abandonment of its owners, the castle was pulled down in 1985.