The Lampettestraetje: a vanished pilgrimage route

Distance: 10.0 km. The walk consists of a loop of 7.5 km (from the start to 3 and then back) and a loop of 2.5 km (from 3 via 4 back to 3)

Start and End: The parking lot in the center behind the community center.

Gps: Oostrozebekestraat 30, 8770 Ingelmunster

Ingelmunster is a landscape in transition. Originally, it was an early medieval angelo-monasterium, a monastery of the English or Irish missionary fathers who came to convert the pagan people. The rural community was shaped by the fortified castle, the motte, of Robrecht de Fries. Later, this became the castle of the De Plotho de Montblanc family, and even later the private residence of the brewer of the castle beer. The village industrialized in the nineteenth century due to the flax cultivation industry around the Leie and was intersected by the Roeselare-Leie canal. A wounded landscape with old, but also very current scars. A region full of stories and history: definitely worth a walk.

Start

We start at the parking lot in the center behind the community center. Turn back to the entrance of the parking lot. Cross the Oostrozebekestraat and go 30 m to the left to turn right into the Bollewerpstraat. To your right, the brewery used to stand here. A new residential neighborhood is being developed here, where you can walk car-free through the green zone.

After house number 32, you can take a footpath on the right, the Lampettestraetje (Knowledge A), which leads to the left at the end, along the sports fields to the parking lot and the ring road.

Cautiously cross the busy ring road to immediately take a paved path on the right that runs parallel to the busy road and bends towards the greenhouses in the distance. At the old cross, take the gravel path to the left, which leads to an asphalt road, until the fork after the second residential house.

1 (1.0 km)

The asphalt road running straight ahead here is the old Lampettestraetje, which you will return on. Choose the narrow gravel path to the right, the Kouterstraetje, which leads into the Lentakkerstraat.

Before you, you can still see the traces of this path, which ran almost straight to reach the Krekelstraat after 800 m in a zigzag (red line on the map). Necessarily, you choose to the right to take a path (Lentakkerstraat 10, 14) past the zigzag turn. A narrow path passes an old yard and widens in the Krekelstraat. Go left to the yard with greenhouses on the left.

Between the barn and the residential building lie the remains of the Kouterstraetje.

2 (2.4 km)

Continue in the same direction, about 700 m until the second street that turns left (Krekelstraat 75 / 79). Meanwhile, we enter the area of Meulebeke.

This was the end of the Lampettestraetje (orange line on the map), which zigzagged for about 1.5 km seeking its way between fields and meadows and is now plowed.

Continue a bit further in the same direction until the third street that comes from the left (Krekelstraat 87), to start the return to Ingelmunster.

3 (3.6 km)

Go a bit further in the same direction to the Krekel, past house number 132, at the cross.

Here stood the inn De Krekel. To the right, you can follow a narrow path along the play forest to the chapel O.L.V. of Bijstand. (Knowledge B).

After a candle and a prayer, you go back to enter the playground. Follow the fence on the right to stroll between the fisherman's clubhouse (de Waterkant) and the fish pond and the Devebeek. If the gate is closed, you can follow the path to the first bridge. At the second bridge, go straight to the castle. Choose the left forest path to the castle's driveway. (Knowledge C)

4 (4.8 km)

Immediately after the bridge, take the path on the left between the castle moat and the buildings of the sports school. After the right curve, you can take the bridge to the left side of the castle moat.

At the level of the swimming pool, you can choose between the paved path straight ahead and the soft ground of the track on the right bank. Both lead towards the play forest. (Knowledge D) Again, you have the choice between the forest (to the diagonally right) or the outer edge, and you walk directly south towards the buildings of the youth associations. Over the path and 'de Krekel', you return to the fork.

3 (5.9 km)

Now go right (Krekelstraat 87). Asphalt turns into gravel and the field path bends right towards the busy N399. As the pilgrimage path is interrupted, we have to follow this busy road left. You pass the Deefacker farm and the small pilot building (Knowledge E). At the level of gate 4 of the Bekaert company, you can choose a field path to the left. This leads to an asphalt road where you go right. (Straight ahead, along the grove, ran 'sentier 70' here).

At the end of the path (after 350 m), go left into the Lentakkerstraat. At the first intersection, after 550 m (left, behind the residential houses, the Lampettestraetje left: orange line on the map), go right to the fork.

1 (8.4 km)

Go back over the narrow path to the parking lot of the sports center.

Now follow the Bollewerpstraat towards the center. Past house number 37, choose the entrance to the cemetery. (Here too ran 'chemin 47': the Kouterstraetje, which was first relocated and later removed).

Before you, the chapel of the monastery and diagonally to the right, the mausoleum of the cemetery. Wind your way between the graves to the mausoleum (Knowledge F). At the front of the restored chapel, take the main entrance and immediately pass to the left of the monastery. (Knowledge G). At the end of the school street, cross the street to the market square (Knowledge H). At the castle wall (Knowledge I), go left past the community center back to the starting point.

 

Knowledge

 

A. Lampettestraetje

A pilgrimage path that draws a line from the heart of Ingelmunster to the chapel of Bijstand in Meulebeke. Ingelmunster and Meulebeke together formed an exclave of the lordship of Dendermonde at the time. A lampette is, among other things, a firepit, a bucket made of iron band filled with tar. Did the pilgrims have this with them? Lampette is also the name of the old residential coral that intersects the path.

 

B. Chapel of Bijstand

Hexagonal pilgrimage chapel with a core from the 18th century, rebuilt in neo-Gothic style in 1886. Also called the "Chapel of Tertentee" as couples would step onto each other on the steps of the chapel. A huge statue of the Virgin Mary made of white marble from 1756 dominates the chapel like a pagan Pallas Athena. On the walls, impressionistic paintings by the Dendermondenar Edgard van Bavegem.

C. Castle Ter Borcht

The main community of Meulebeke. Originally a manoir, a modest but fortified manor house on a walled motte with a courtyard. The motte, upper courtyard (the castle), and courtyard (the farm) are still recognizable. A school building now stands on the courtyard. The little castle is a special interplay of two wings built parallel to each other. Several remarkable old trees stand in the vicinity.

D. Play Forest

The Meulebeekse Play Forest consists of two parts, the older chapel forest and the newer Kabouterwald. The latter originated from birth trees planted in 1999. Cross-country racing enthusiasts may recognize the route of the Bear Cross, with the famous 'washboard', a series of hills that the racers must cross.

E. Deefakker Farm

Directly next to the Deefakker farm, characterized by two historical oaks, stands a nondescript shed quietly in the meadow. A plastered building under a gable roof that deserves care and restoration as it is one of the few remaining pilot buildings from the German war airfields from World War I. Ingelmunster was in the staging area during World War I and had two airfields, one at Deefakker and one at Izegemstraat.

F. Mausoleum at the Cemetery

Special four-leaf chapel from 1865, designed after the model of the Romanesque chapel Sainte-Croix of the Abbey of Montmajour near Arles. It served as the mausoleum for the noble family de Montblanc, who lived in the castle. Below the chapel is a crypt that can be visited on exceptional occasions, with the tombs of the barons.

G.  Monastery.

Monastery of the assemblée des filles de la charité. In 1918, the buildings were apparently saved from fire by a miraculous image of Mary. Behind the modern chapel from 1957, visible from the cemetery, lies a large monastery garden with hedge structures made of hornbeam and conifers, a Lourdes grotto, and an enclosed cross.

H. Market Square

Until 1970, the market square was filled with small folk dwellings. A street (the Kerkstraat) was perpendicular to the church gate. These were cleared and a square was created. At the edge of the castle park, a green area was preserved, the old castle vegetable garden, which, however, was already full of trees. During the redesign of the market in 2012, this was also cleared, except for the stone oak near the info pavilion. Today, the spacious open market square is dominated by Moor cypresses.

I. Castle

This building transforms from motte to castle to neoclassical palace and has recently been visited by several disasters. In 2001, the central part and the salons in the right wing burned down completely. Only the walls remained standing, but everything has since been restored. In 2012, the gate of the castle park was finally closed to the public. In 2017, the owner Van Honsebrouck decided to illegally clear much of the park.

This walk was designed by Dani Nolf and Mike Van Acoleyen and previously appeared in Klimop 2019-2.

Klimop is the member magazine of Natuur.koepel vzw. More information: http://www.natuurkoepel.be