Secrets of Brugge

Another very busy week; yet another hour in the dentist's chair; two evenings of Dutch classes, three and a half hours an evening [which feels a little excessive, given the slow pace of progress!]; a thank you lunch with a friend who gave lots of help earlier in August at a brunch for ten which I did; coffee at Hotel Martin with the English-speaking 'ladies'! And so on.

But, best of all, two Jane Austen Kent Branch friends came for a couple of days and I had lots of fun showing them a few of the interesting features of life in Bruges. I am not certain but I think the top of their hit parade were the magical restoration works of Sint Donaas, the tenth century cathedral demolished in the late eighteenth century by the French and then the last session of the year of the ringing of the Dumery bell by foot to commemorate the work of Joris Dumery [17] the carillon-maker who installed the carillon in the Belfort [the Beiard]. They were much taken by meeting the foot bell-ringer, Paul vanden Abeele and his super wife, Jo. And I was delighted to meet Maria, a 94 year old friend of the Abeele who lived nearby and who always comes to witness the Ringing of the Bell. She insisted on taking me into her immaculate four-bedroomed house to show me masses of family photographs, including one of her husband in his wartime naval uniform. He was unbelievably handsome!

And, after their departure on Saturday afternoon, I joined friends to go to a property in the weekend's annual Open Monuments Day, rather like the Open Houses in London at this time of year. The first one I could make was the Minnewaterkliniek on Professor Dr J Sebrechtsstraat, a huge place comprising virtually one whole side of the street. Opened as a hospital and built at the instigation of the redoubtable Dr Sebrechts it is now an old people's home, complete with a splendid chapel and in-house medical care both for the inmates and others outside the home. It is a marvellously tranquil place with gardens to the rear and ample parking in what was almost certainly part of the original huge garden area.

A view from the garden of the chapel and a small part of the extensive buildings

of the Minnewaterkliniek

The last visit of the afternoon was to the house of Louis Reckelbus, 1864-1958. I had never heard of Meneer Reckelbus but discovered that he had been a watercolour artist of landscapes, city-scapes and so on, eventually appointed to be Curator of the Groeninghe Museum. He was among the first Belgian refugees during the First World War, to flee to, and settle in, St Ives in Cornwall, an artists' colony where he soon found an active place in the community and where he also sold his paintings to raise money to help his fellow refugees. He described St Ives, when he returned home to his birthplace of Brugge, as 'a little unspoiled Paradise', quite a tribute from one born and bred in Brugge.

A Reckelbus painting, an artist unknown to me till now!

His house too was a little Paradise; he had bought it in three separate parts, the first in August 1909 and the final in September 1937, gradually renovating it. Today, after earlier threats of demolition, it survives as an architect's stylish offices with a lovely garden at the back, bounded by a canal, and with a kitchen of particular note. It has been 'modernised' relatively recently but with sufficient of the original tiles left in place to make one long to see it as it was. There is a treasure, apparently guarded in secrecy by Louis Reckelbus, at the top of the stairs; it is no more than significant fragments of a fresco depicting the Nativity, probably fifteenth century; the face of the Madonna is particularly serene and beautiful and must have given the artist untold pleasure each time he clambered up the rather difficult stairs. It was a privilege to be allowed to see inside this building. And wonderful to have discovered Louis Reckelbus and his art.

Magical to have such an exquisite fresco remaining in part, in a private house.

Michele, my invaluable translator, and I had a full programme of Open Monuments on Sunday with the morning promising exceptional interest. We had a guided tour of the on-going restoration work in the Gruuthuse Museum and also in Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, the Church of Our Lady, the huge and important church where Michelangelo's Madonna and Child are on display. I think I found the Gruuthuse tour particularly good with a super guide and an early mediaeval building for which one felt an instinctive empathy, its earlier grandeur slightly down-at-heel; its magnificence, a little shabby. Rather like an ageing Queen caught without the usual attention to detail. It was obviously being rescued from serious deterioration with wet rot abundant, tiled floors under centuries of dirt and wear, painted wood and walls faded beyond recognition. The restoration so far is Seriously Good, beginning towards the end of last year, and to continue until an advertised 2015 though, as the guide told us, almost every step of the way, as one piece of restoration is begun, another need for remedial work becomes visible. The finish date may well yet be pushed back to allow for more work as more decay is uncovered. Undoubtedly there is EU money involved, probably finance also from the city and from the regional government too. 

Restored crests amid both old and new wood.

The tour started in the attics where an apparently new mediaeval tiled floor stretched before us. The restoration of this huge pavement had revealed two unsuspected colours of tiles forming a regular pattern and we saw another floor area in the same attic, still untouched, and simply unrecognisable in its dirt and ageing with a heavy mantel of earth and centuries of use. The ample beams and lower roof timbers had all been restored and the motto of the Gruuthuse family, 'Plus est en vous' [que vous pensez, being implied] was written in beautiful script over many of the beams. This was the motto of Lodewijk Gruuthuse, 1422-1492, who built this palace originally, and means that there is more in you than you realise. A splendidly inspiring motto for a group [as in Gordonstoun which has also taken this same  motto] but our guide emphasised that it did, in fact, refer to the great man, Lodewijk, himself, almost everything he did being an extension of his ego! The numerous repetitions displayed upon the attic beams of Plus est en vous were not, apparently, done on behalf of Lodewijk, but the result of a little over-exuberance on the part of the firm, Delasenserie, which undertook a major renovation during the 1920s and which is, interestingly, in charge of the present operation.

Lodewijk, diplomat, soldier, aristocrat, patron and his motto

Plus est en vous

The tour took in various rooms, in differing stages of renovation; the little chapel, virtually joined to the OLV church next door, had been almost gutted in the restoration process, though its beautiful ceiling which merged into an apse at one end, was entire. Below the apse, a window seat with windows which opened on to, and into, OLV and which permitted the less-committed church-goers in the mediaeval Gruuthuse, to claim they had breathed the holy air, when both windows at one end and door at the other, were left open.

The beautiful little Gruuthuse chapel, awaiting further attention

The church inside, was highly polluted with thick layers of dust and soot, cracks in walls and vaults,  and damage from fungi and beetles. The current phase of renovation takes in the choir, the choir aisle, the sacristy and the transcript. The renovations in the huge church itself  are impressive with the main enemy, again the water. It is quite a feat to keep open an important and busy church for the faithful, plus accommodate an unceasing army of visiting tourists anxious to tick off the Michelangelo on their list. It is being accomplished with the major part of the building closed behind scaffolding and plastic sheets for restoration and will be thus until the end of 2015. There is a fixed budget [of 1.538 million, the majority of which has come from the Flemish community.]  so difficult decisions are being made as further unsuspected decay is revealed and plans for expensive gilding, or some replacement, have to be shelved. Renovation on this scale, and under the twin pressures of worship and tourism, is a daunting task but the renovator who spoke to us showed photos of utterly painstaking work being done with a tiny scalpel and infinite patience. Astonishing and humbling.

One restored corner of a large stone tablet rather sums up the power of restoration.

So many secrets of this ancient city uncovered in just one week. The Open Monuments weekend is intended for Bruggelings, not tourists, [hence only Dutch spoken] and it was heartening to see considerable interest and pride in their civic inheritance, displayed in the numbers attending and the keenness shown. But the great interest in the hidden Sint Donaas Kathedral and the esoteric ringing of the old bell in memoriam, by tourists like my visitors is also gratifying. Brugge really is a treasure trove for those who look a little beyond the beautiful surface, stunning though that is.