My Brugge: 2020-10-25

Wednesday 28 October 2020

Windows to the World

This one is very typical of numerous Brugge windows
decorated in sentimental style as long ago as
last March.

On my ubiquitous daily walks this week, I suddenly noticed Windows or at least, certain windows adorned with highly individualised decoration. Once one had caught my eye, I started to look and found several with delightful features dreamed up by whoever lived behind the glass!! In truth, there weren’t SO many but it gave me a little extra task as I wandered along seeking the hazy goal of sustaining health. It’s good to have a transparent purpose!!

A beautiful example on the building
of the Guild of Sint Sebastien.

I noticed again how many bricked-up windows there are on old houses in Brugge. And I was sensitised to bricked-up windows at Waingroves Hall where I lived with my family when the children were growing up, from 1968. Waingroves had two bricked-up windows which had undoubtedly been accomplished sometime during the years of the Window Tax in Britain. The Window Tax was a property-based tax based on the number of windows in a house and introduced during the reign of William 111 as an alternative to income tax the mere suggestion of which aroused considerable controversy. It was a significant social, cultural and architectural force in England, France, Scotland and Ireland during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Presumably it must also have covered the area which is now Belgium or at the very least, Bruges. To avoid the tax, based on the number of windows above a base level specified by the Government, property owners had certain windows bricked up presumably with the intention of having the space re-glazed at a later date. It was introduced into England and Wales in 1696 and not repealed for 155 years in 1851 when popular discontent forced its removal. In France, it was established in 1798 and unbelievably, not repealed until 1926! Scotland’s Window Tax covered the much shorter period, 1748-1798. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith observed that the window tax was inoffensive and easy to collect; it had originally been designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the tax payer, although it was eventually recognised as penalising the poor disproportionately.