Berck
Encyclopedia
Berck, sometimes referred to as Berck-sur-Mer, is a commune
in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France
and lies within the Marquenterre regional park, an ornithological nature reserve. In 1980 the town twinned with Hythe
in England and Poperinge
in Belgium.
. The town comprises two parts – to the east, the old fishing town of Berck-Ville and to the west the seaside area, Berck-sur-Mer.
The old town was formerly a fishing harbour which in 1301 was recorded to have 150 homesteads with 800 inhabitants. A mediaeval wooden lighthouse, known locally as a foïer, was built on a dune and lit by charcoal and faggots but this burned down several times. On one occasion at least it was as a result of the continuous conflict between the English and the French in the Hundred Years War. The chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet
mentions that during 1414 the English garrison in Calais
raided south and burned the town. Eventually the lighthouse was replaced by a stone tower at the side of which a chapel was built in the 15th century, but this did not save it from further mishap. During the second siege of Montreuil
in 1544, the English advanced from the south and burned 200 houses, the church and the mill as they passed through Berck. What was left of the place was then burned by the French on their way to relieve the siege.
The chapel was later extended to join the tower, making what is now the church of St-Jean-Baptiste, but the tower was only converted to a belfry after the sea retired, leaving it 1.5 kilometres inland. It is for this reason that the present division between the original village and the sea-front area exists. As a result, boats were then designed with flat bottoms so that they could be drawn up on the beach and a cart was driven out to them in order to bring in the catch (see Eugène Boudin's painting below).
In the mid-19th century, Berck took on a therapeutic role in the treatment of tuberculosis
. The Maritime hospital was inaugurated in 1869 by Empress Eugenie. Other hospitals and benevolent institutes were soon created to cater for the sick and those in need of rest and recuperation. It was at this time that the medical benefits of sea bathing were being recommended and the town, advertised as just a three-hour journey from Paris, began to build up its tourist trade with the help of the railways.
At first one had to alight at the nearby town of Verton
on the main line to Calais, but in 1893 a metre-gauge branch line was built connecting it with other towns in the region. As well as carrying passengers, there was also goods traffic from the brick-works at Berck Ville. Known locally as le tortillard for its wandering route, it was closed in 1955. There was a later narrow-gauge line running northwards through the dunes from Berck Plage to Paris-Plage, as Le Touquet was then known. It was built in stages via Merlimont between 1909-12 but gradually sanded over and closed in 1929.
During World War II
the sea front was disrupted by the installation of the Nazi Atlantic Wall
and the town suffered from bombing during the allied invasion in 1944. This contributed to the diminishing of the ancient fishing industry, which numbered some 150 boats at the turn of the century and had all but disappeared by the 1960s. Today, although the hospital sector remains economically important, the town has again promoted itself as a tourist attraction. A seaside bathing station, with an immense beach of fine sand on the Opal Coast, it continues to be a centre for sand yacht
ing and the new sport of surfboard
ing. The former Berck Plage railway station has been converted into a casino.
Over the past two centuries there has been a steady growth in the population of the town, which in the 1793 census was 983, only a little more than the 800 recorded in 1301. In 1851 this had doubled to 2,216 and after the commercial development during the second half of that century had climbed to 7,799 by 1901. It more than doubled again by 1936 (16,700) but fell to 11,529 by 1946 and as of 2007 stands at 15,341.
Beside its medical establishments, the beach quarter catered to the moneyed classes in the second half of the 19th century and slowly filled with grandiose villas, hotels and amenities. Among these were handsome casinos, of which the principal was the Eden, also known as the Grand Casino de la Plage, with its theatre and music hall. This was destroyed in 1944 but is survived by its equally gorgeous rival, the Kursaal. The ambitious Cottage des Dunes, which tried to unite a luxury hotel and casino, failed commercially in 1913. After a brief spell as a hospital, it entered into official use. Another official building that survived the bombing was the town hall, which was built in 1893 and has murals painted by Jan Lavezzari.
After the stone tower of St John the Baptist fell into disuse as a lighthouse, a new one was built in brick among the dunes in 1835. At 20 metres, it proved not high enough and was replaced in 1868 by one 35 metres high. After that was destroyed in 1944, it was at last replaced in 1961 by one 45 metres high built of concrete. Its light can be seen from a distance of 24 nautical miles (44.4 km).
and during 1889-91 by Emile Wenz. The experiments continued until 1914 and some of the photos found commercial use on postcards.
The town has had an aerodrome since 1917. This was in part because at the start of the 20th century, the area played its part in the race to take to the air. The artist Jan Lavezzari
, who had originally studied engineering, tested a double lateen sail hang glider from the Merlimont sand dunes in February 1904. He was followed there that Easter by Gabriel Voisin
, who made a trial flight in a glider plane modelled on that of the Wright Brothers
and over a few seconds was airborne for 50 metres.
His one-time partner Louis Blériot
never experimented with flight at Berck, but he did develop and test the sand-yacht (l'aeroplage) there in 1911 and pioneered the first race over the sands in 1913. Since 1966 a six-hour endurance race has been hosted by the local Eole Club. And since 1986 there has been an annual kite-flying festival each April on the sands, attracting international exhibits of great beauty and inventiveness.
, who passed a summer there with his family in 1873. Among the twenty paintings he made were depictions of boats at sea and the beachscape now in the Musée d'Orsay
. Eugène Boudin
first visited in 1874 and over the next twenty years made Berck the subject of some 120 paintings. He was followed in 1876 by Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic
, who was so taken with the place that he set up a studio there and until 1885 devoted some six months of the year to recording the area and the fisherman's life.
Following in their footsteps came the sons of local families who, until about 1914, constituted what has been called 'the Berck School'. These included Francis Tattegrain, who was encouraged to take up art by Lepic; Jan Lavezzari
, son of the town architect who was also a friend of Lepic; Charles Roussel (1861 - 1936), who settled in the town in 1886; and Eugène Trigoulet (1864 - 1910). After World War I
the town and its inhabitants continued to be represented artistically by Roussel and by Louis Montaigu (1905 - 1988). Fishermen in interiors were a speciality of the latter.
A collection of these and other Opal Coast painters was opened in 1979 in the Municipal Museum, sited in Berck's old Gendarmerie, which was built at the end of the 19th century by Emile Lavezzari.
The town figures unfavourably in the long poem "Berck-Plage" by Sylvia Plath
. She had visited it in 1961 and wrote the poem a year later, mixing there memories of maimed war veterans at the Berck hospital with impressions of the recent death and funeral of a neighbour. The Picard dialect poet Ivar Ch'Vavar was born in the town in 1951 and, though he now lives in Amiens, has often written about it, most notably in Berck (un poème), published in 1997. Berck has also figured in the novel Une année à Berck by Christian Morel de Sarcus (Paris, 1997).
, from which originated several expressions used by fishermen. Although it has now retreated before standard French
, there are still those who seek to preserve it. Berck has a language association, T'yn souvyin tu? and there have been linguistic studies of the local dialect. These include the poet Edouard Grandel's Lexique du patois berckois (Université de Picardie, Amiens, 1980), Lucien Tétu's Glossaire du parler de Berck (Société de linguistique picarde, 1981) and his À l'écoute des Berckois : Dictons et proverbes, sobriquets (Société de linguistique picarde, 1988).
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and lies within the Marquenterre regional park, an ornithological nature reserve. In 1980 the town twinned with Hythe
Hythe
Hythe may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, or to:Placenames in Canada*Hythe, Alberta Placenames in England*Hythe, Essex *Hythe, Hampshire...
in England and Poperinge
Poperinge
Poperinge is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders, Flemish Region, and has a history going back to mediaeval times. The municipality comprises the town of Poperinge proper and surrounding villages. The area is famous for its hops and lace.-The town:Poperinge is situated...
in Belgium.
Geography
Situated just to the north of the estuary of the river Authie, Berck has a huge expanse of sandy beach and impressive grassy-topped dunes facing north onto the English ChannelEnglish Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. The town comprises two parts – to the east, the old fishing town of Berck-Ville and to the west the seaside area, Berck-sur-Mer.
History
Berck is the most southerly town in the Pas-de-Calais to have a name with Germanic roots, variously spelt over the centuries. Its origin has been conjectured to come either from berg (a hill or possibly dune); bekkr, the Norse name for a stream ('beck' in northern England); or beorc (a birch tree), designating a wooded area.The old town was formerly a fishing harbour which in 1301 was recorded to have 150 homesteads with 800 inhabitants. A mediaeval wooden lighthouse, known locally as a foïer, was built on a dune and lit by charcoal and faggots but this burned down several times. On one occasion at least it was as a result of the continuous conflict between the English and the French in the Hundred Years War. The chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet
Enguerrand de Monstrelet
Enguerrand de Monstrelet , French chronicler, belonged to a noble family of Picardy.In 1436 and later he held the office of lieutenant of the gavenier at Cambrai, and he seems to have made this city his usual place of residence...
mentions that during 1414 the English garrison in Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
raided south and burned the town. Eventually the lighthouse was replaced by a stone tower at the side of which a chapel was built in the 15th century, but this did not save it from further mishap. During the second siege of Montreuil
Montreuil
Montreuil is the name or part of the name of several communes of France:* Montreuil, Eure-et-Loir, in the Eure-et-Loir département* Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais, or Montreuil-sur-Mer, in the Pas-de-Calais département...
in 1544, the English advanced from the south and burned 200 houses, the church and the mill as they passed through Berck. What was left of the place was then burned by the French on their way to relieve the siege.
The chapel was later extended to join the tower, making what is now the church of St-Jean-Baptiste, but the tower was only converted to a belfry after the sea retired, leaving it 1.5 kilometres inland. It is for this reason that the present division between the original village and the sea-front area exists. As a result, boats were then designed with flat bottoms so that they could be drawn up on the beach and a cart was driven out to them in order to bring in the catch (see Eugène Boudin's painting below).
In the mid-19th century, Berck took on a therapeutic role in the treatment of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. The Maritime hospital was inaugurated in 1869 by Empress Eugenie. Other hospitals and benevolent institutes were soon created to cater for the sick and those in need of rest and recuperation. It was at this time that the medical benefits of sea bathing were being recommended and the town, advertised as just a three-hour journey from Paris, began to build up its tourist trade with the help of the railways.
At first one had to alight at the nearby town of Verton
Verton
Verton is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:Verton is located 6 miles southwest of Montreuil-sur-Mer at the D143 and D303 road junction, and 3 miles from the coast, at the bay of the Authie.-Population:-Places of interest:* The...
on the main line to Calais, but in 1893 a metre-gauge branch line was built connecting it with other towns in the region. As well as carrying passengers, there was also goods traffic from the brick-works at Berck Ville. Known locally as le tortillard for its wandering route, it was closed in 1955. There was a later narrow-gauge line running northwards through the dunes from Berck Plage to Paris-Plage, as Le Touquet was then known. It was built in stages via Merlimont between 1909-12 but gradually sanded over and closed in 1929.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the sea front was disrupted by the installation of the Nazi Atlantic Wall
Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the western coast of Europe as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of the mainland continent from Great Britain.-History:On March 23, 1942 Führer Directive Number 40...
and the town suffered from bombing during the allied invasion in 1944. This contributed to the diminishing of the ancient fishing industry, which numbered some 150 boats at the turn of the century and had all but disappeared by the 1960s. Today, although the hospital sector remains economically important, the town has again promoted itself as a tourist attraction. A seaside bathing station, with an immense beach of fine sand on the Opal Coast, it continues to be a centre for sand yacht
Land sailing
Land sailing, also known as sand yachting or land yachting, is the act of moving across land in a wheeled vehicle powered by wind through the use of a sail. The term comes from analogy with sailing. Historically, land sailing was used as a mode of transportation or recreation...
ing and the new sport of surfboard
Surfboard
A surfboard is an elongated platform used in the sport of surfing. Surfboards are relatively light, but are strong enough to support an individual standing on them while riding a breaking wave...
ing. The former Berck Plage railway station has been converted into a casino.
Over the past two centuries there has been a steady growth in the population of the town, which in the 1793 census was 983, only a little more than the 800 recorded in 1301. In 1851 this had doubled to 2,216 and after the commercial development during the second half of that century had climbed to 7,799 by 1901. It more than doubled again by 1936 (16,700) but fell to 11,529 by 1946 and as of 2007 stands at 15,341.
Buildings
The church of Saint Jean Baptiste was restored in 1954 and the 15th century carvings on its corbels were then highlighted in paint. The choir and belfry are now listed monuments. The new church of Notre-Dame des Sables was opened in 1886 on the marketplace of the beach quarter. Its seating for 1,500 was to cater principally for holiday makers in season and the patients from the many medical establishments profiting from the sea air. There are paintings on the choir walls.Beside its medical establishments, the beach quarter catered to the moneyed classes in the second half of the 19th century and slowly filled with grandiose villas, hotels and amenities. Among these were handsome casinos, of which the principal was the Eden, also known as the Grand Casino de la Plage, with its theatre and music hall. This was destroyed in 1944 but is survived by its equally gorgeous rival, the Kursaal. The ambitious Cottage des Dunes, which tried to unite a luxury hotel and casino, failed commercially in 1913. After a brief spell as a hospital, it entered into official use. Another official building that survived the bombing was the town hall, which was built in 1893 and has murals painted by Jan Lavezzari.
After the stone tower of St John the Baptist fell into disuse as a lighthouse, a new one was built in brick among the dunes in 1835. At 20 metres, it proved not high enough and was replaced in 1868 by one 35 metres high. After that was destroyed in 1944, it was at last replaced in 1961 by one 45 metres high built of concrete. Its light can be seen from a distance of 24 nautical miles (44.4 km).
Aeronautical experiments
The steady sea breezes and the updraft created by the neighbouring dunes once made the town the centre of a number of aeronautical experiments. These began in the final decades of the 19th century with early trials of photography from unmanned kites. Among the first working locally was the English meteorologist E.D.Archibald in 1887; he was followed the next year by Arthur BatutArthur Batut
Arthur Batut was a French photographer and pioneer of aerial photography.-Life:Batut, born 1846 in Castres, was interested in history, archeology and photography...
and during 1889-91 by Emile Wenz. The experiments continued until 1914 and some of the photos found commercial use on postcards.
The town has had an aerodrome since 1917. This was in part because at the start of the 20th century, the area played its part in the race to take to the air. The artist Jan Lavezzari
Jan Lavezzari
Jan Lavezzari was a gifted painter, born in Paris, France from a well known architect: Emile Lavezzari.Jan studied engineering and then moved to Berck-sur-Mer, northern France in 1900, where he decided to become a professional painter instead, and settled there. Jan Lavezzari produced several oil...
, who had originally studied engineering, tested a double lateen sail hang glider from the Merlimont sand dunes in February 1904. He was followed there that Easter by Gabriel Voisin
Gabriel Voisin
Gabriel Voisin was an aviation pioneer and the creator of Europe's first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained , circular, controlled flight, including take-off and landing. It was flown by Henry Farman on January 13, 1908 near Paris, France...
, who made a trial flight in a glider plane modelled on that of the Wright Brothers
Wright brothers
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...
and over a few seconds was airborne for 50 metres.
His one-time partner Louis Blériot
Louis Blériot
Louis Charles Joseph Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel. For this achievement, he received a prize of £1,000...
never experimented with flight at Berck, but he did develop and test the sand-yacht (l'aeroplage) there in 1911 and pioneered the first race over the sands in 1913. Since 1966 a six-hour endurance race has been hosted by the local Eole Club. And since 1986 there has been an annual kite-flying festival each April on the sands, attracting international exhibits of great beauty and inventiveness.
The 'Berck School' of painters
Painters joined the 19th century Parisian visitors to the town and passed on news of their discovery to fellow artists in the capital. One of the most notable was Edouard ManetÉdouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, who passed a summer there with his family in 1873. Among the twenty paintings he made were depictions of boats at sea and the beachscape now in the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
. Eugène Boudin
Eugène Boudin
Eugène Boudin was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors.Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores...
first visited in 1874 and over the next twenty years made Berck the subject of some 120 paintings. He was followed in 1876 by Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic
Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic
Vicomte Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic was a French artist, archaeologist and patron of the arts. He is best remembered today as a friend of Edgar Degas, who included him in some eleven paintings and pastels...
, who was so taken with the place that he set up a studio there and until 1885 devoted some six months of the year to recording the area and the fisherman's life.
Following in their footsteps came the sons of local families who, until about 1914, constituted what has been called 'the Berck School'. These included Francis Tattegrain, who was encouraged to take up art by Lepic; Jan Lavezzari
Jan Lavezzari
Jan Lavezzari was a gifted painter, born in Paris, France from a well known architect: Emile Lavezzari.Jan studied engineering and then moved to Berck-sur-Mer, northern France in 1900, where he decided to become a professional painter instead, and settled there. Jan Lavezzari produced several oil...
, son of the town architect who was also a friend of Lepic; Charles Roussel (1861 - 1936), who settled in the town in 1886; and Eugène Trigoulet (1864 - 1910). After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
the town and its inhabitants continued to be represented artistically by Roussel and by Louis Montaigu (1905 - 1988). Fishermen in interiors were a speciality of the latter.
A collection of these and other Opal Coast painters was opened in 1979 in the Municipal Museum, sited in Berck's old Gendarmerie, which was built at the end of the 19th century by Emile Lavezzari.
Berck in the arts
Among minor artists who have made Berck a subject in their work are Paul Laugée (1853-1937); Eugene Chigot (1860-1923), who had a studio there in 1893; and Georges Maroniez, a judge who painted and photographed in the area during holidays. Two others stayed in the town because of its medical facilities. Albert Besnard was there in 1895 on account of his tubercular son. As a thanks offering for his cure, Besnard and his wife Charlotte decorated the walls of the chapel in the Cazin-Perrochaud Institute between the years 1898-1901. While he was there, he also executed oil paintings and etchings. Jean Laronze (see above) was also there in 1904 for the same reason and painted several canvases during his stay.The town figures unfavourably in the long poem "Berck-Plage" by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
. She had visited it in 1961 and wrote the poem a year later, mixing there memories of maimed war veterans at the Berck hospital with impressions of the recent death and funeral of a neighbour. The Picard dialect poet Ivar Ch'Vavar was born in the town in 1951 and, though he now lives in Amiens, has often written about it, most notably in Berck (un poème), published in 1997. Berck has also figured in the novel Une année à Berck by Christian Morel de Sarcus (Paris, 1997).
Language
The language originally spoken by the inhabitants was PicardPicard language
Picard is a language closely related to French, and as such is one of the larger group of Romance languages. It is spoken in two regions in the far north of France – Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy – and in parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, the district of Tournai and a part of...
, from which originated several expressions used by fishermen. Although it has now retreated before standard French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, there are still those who seek to preserve it. Berck has a language association, T'yn souvyin tu? and there have been linguistic studies of the local dialect. These include the poet Edouard Grandel's Lexique du patois berckois (Université de Picardie, Amiens, 1980), Lucien Tétu's Glossaire du parler de Berck (Société de linguistique picarde, 1981) and his À l'écoute des Berckois : Dictons et proverbes, sobriquets (Société de linguistique picarde, 1988).
People
- Empress EugénieEugénie de MontijoDoña María Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzmán y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countess of Teba and 15th Marquise of Ardales; 5 May 1826 – 11 July 1920), known as Eugénie de Montijo , was the last Empress consort of the French from 1853 to 1871 as the wife of Napoleon III, Emperor of...
inaugurated lHôpital Napoléon on the 18th July 1869, which became the Hôpital Maritime after the fall of the Empire. - Annette MessagerAnnette MessagerAnnette Messager is a French artist who was born in 1943. She is known mainly for her installation work which often incorporates photographs, prints and drawings, and various materials. Messager has exhibited and published her work extensively...
, conceptual artist. - Jean-Dominique BaubyJean-Dominique BaubyJean-Dominique Bauby was a well-known French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazine ELLE.On 8 December 1995 at the age of 43, Bauby suffered a massive stroke. When he woke up twenty days later, he found he was entirely speechless; he could only blink his left eyelid...
, author of the French best seller Le scaphandre et le papillon, which was also filmed in the town.