Floorizone bridge Wulpendijk

The Nieuwpoort-Veurne canal is one of the waterways, paid for by Bruges, Veurne and Dunkirk, to connect Plassendale and Bruges to Dunkirk (in northern France) by water. This part was built around 1640. An old waterway, the Langelis (Langgeleed), was deepened and straightened from Nieuwpoort to Wulpen. The section to Veurne was then dug completely new with manpower.

In the vicinity of the Nieuwpoort-Veurne canal you will find many relics from the past. For example, the bike ride passes along the Conterdijk, an earthen wall that was raised with the earth released from the canals. They are typical terms for defense lines along waterways, but the dikes also functioned as a country road and a towpath for the boobs that pulled the boats.

Halfway through Nieuwpoort-Veurne, the Wulpen bridge was from then on the only place where the canal was crossed by a country road. This gave rise to a 'dyke settlement': houses, a brewery and a few inns on the dike, which paid some tribute to the association of the three cities that had paid for the canal. Maps from the late 17th century show a strong fortification around the bridge and the dike settlement. This is a result of the Franco-Spanish Wars, when Veurne was fortified by the French, while Nieuwpoort was in Spanish hands. A series of small fortresses (“redoubts”) then secured the further course of the Langelis. One of the redoubts is located a bit further, before the bridge of the Toekomstlaan, in the meadow between the Conterdijk and the Langeleedstraat. We can still clearly see the canals and the artificial hill on which the watchtower once stood.

Water management has been extremely important for the history of this region. In the course of the 11th and 12th centuries in particular, the large channels and inlets of the sea were forced between dikes to form the waterways we know today. This means that many waterways have a partly natural and partly artificial course.

This also applies to the Langelis or Langgeed. A '-lee' name often refers to artificial waterways. The Langelis as we know it today begins at the border of Belgium and France (in the Middle Ages the border between the Flemish castellanies of Veurne and Sint-Winoksbergen), with an angular course that points to human intervention. The Langelis ran south of the dune belt to Nieuwpoort and was important for the polders, which could not drain directly into the sea because of the dune belt. As a result of the inclusion in the Nieuwpoort-Veurne canal, the barrel was straightened and deepened. The drainage function was retained.

To the south of it is the Oude Zeedijkstraat: a somewhat crooked road that runs just south of the settlement of Wulpendijk. This is a remnant of one of the oldest large dikes that played a role in the reclamation. The Oude Zeedijk can be followed almost all along the inside of the Yser Gulf, from Lo/de Knocke to here. The Langelis and the Oude Zeedijk thus remind us of that important period of land reclamation.

The canal took over the role of the Langelis in water management. It was also important from a military point of view, and that certainly applied to the Wulpenbrug, which was given extra at the end of the 17th century. But the canal also had an important function in water traffic. The three cities of Bruges, Veurne and Dunkirk formed a society, 't Nieuw Bedelf, which took over the exploitation. This included both the transport of goods and the movement of people. The most comfortable means of transport in those days was the barge across the canal. You had to take a little more time for it, but water traffic was definitely preferable to jerky carriages or carts on roads barely passable in winter!
In the early 19th century, the settlement on Wulpendijk still consisted of houses with a vegetable garden on small plots that strictly followed the building line halfway up the dike. It was not until halfway through that century that habitation also appeared on the Conterdijk. The settlement grew until it had even more inhabitants than the old village core. With a wide range of professions. A number of these were based on water traffic, including a striking number of inns for fishermen or for skippers and travellers. Due to the emergence of other modes of transport, the latter focus has been completely lost. But fishermen and cyclists continue to be attracted by the peaceful environment.

The bridge was completely renovated in 2007. After a call to the population for a new name, Koksijde opted for “Florizoonebrug”. In doing so, the municipality pays tribute to an extended family, of which an ancestor settled on Wulpendijk in 1699. A mill belonging to the family was blown up in 1914, and its chapel had to make way for the new bridge. Several mayors came from the family, the founders of Bellewaerde and Meli (now Plopsaland), poet and cultural ambassador of Koksijde Fernand Florizoone, and various business managers and traders in the Veurn region.

Willem Vandenameele