Beuvry () is a commune in the

Pas-de-Calais The Pas-de-Calais (, ' strait of Calais'; ; ) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments of France, with 890, and is the ...

department in the

Hauts-de-France Hauts-de-France (; ; ), also referred to in English as Upper France, is the northernmost region of France, created by the territorial reform of French regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its prefecture is Lille. ...

region in northern France.INSEE commune file
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Geography

A suburban town immediately southwest of Béthune, southwest of

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

, at the junction of the D945, D72 and N41 roads. Light industry and a little farming have replaced the coal mining of the past.

History

The town's name comes from ''beaver'' (in Old French, ''bièvre'') and underwent variations on this over the centuries: Berri; Beuvri; Bevery; Bouvry and finally Beuvry. On 19 September 1784 the Robert brothers (Anne-Jean Robert and Marie-Noël Robert) plus M. Collin-Hullin flew their hydrogen balloon, ''La Caroline'', on request of Philippe III Alexandre, 1st Prince de Ghistelles for 6 hours 40 minutes, covering 186 km from Paris to Beuvry. ''La Caroline'' owed its design to the work of professor

Jacques Charles Jacques Alexandre César Charles (12 November 1746 – 7 April 1823) was a French people, French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist. Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due ...

and Jean Baptiste Meusnier and achieved the world's first ever flight over 100 km. In the Ville de Beuvry a stone monument was erected to commemorate the 200th anniversary landing of the brothers in ''La Caroline'' on 19 September 1784. A celebration ball ''la ducasse "du Ballon"'' is now held at the end of September each year. The town has been awarded the Croix de Guerre twice: after World War I and again, after World War II. A coal-mining town for about 100 years, the last pit closed in the 1960s.
The town was merged with the nearby city of

Béthune Béthune ( ; archaic and ''Bethwyn'' historically in English) is a town in northern France, Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department. Geography Béthune is located in the Provinces of Fran ...

at the end of 1993. However, many of the Beuvrygeois voiced their dissatisfaction with the decision at the time, which resulted in the municipal elections of 1995, petitions in 1995 and 1996 and the creation, in October 1996, of a special commission to give an opinion on draft amendments to the territorial limits of the city of Béthune for the re-creation of a separate town of Beuvry. The municipal election in September 1997 led to a de-merger and Beuvry became an independent full-fledged town again in November 1997.

Population

Sights

* The church of St. Martin, dating from the sixteenth century. * An old

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

* The Prévôté building (once belonging to an abbey).. * The sixteenth-century Manor of l'Estracelles. * An eighteenth-century chateau. * The

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

cemetery ( Beuvry Communal Cemetery Extension).

International relations

Beuvry is twinned with: * Hemer, Germany.

References

External links

A website about the history of Beuvry

{{Authority control Communes of Pas-de-Calais