Larochette (;
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
The language is standardized and officiall ...
: ''Fiels'',
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
: ''Fels'') is a
commune and town in central
Luxembourg
Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...
, in the
canton of Mersch. It is situated on the
White Ernz river. The town is dominated by the partly ruined
Larochette Castle.
The town of Larochette lies in the north-east of the commune. Other towns within the commune include
Ernzen.
Meysembourg Castle, located some south-west of Larochette, has a history dating back to the 12th century. Today's castle was built in 1880 in
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century Revivalism (architecture), architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival ar ...
style and is privately owned.
Geography
The settlements of the commune lie in the valley of the
White Ernz into which the commune's streams Ousterbur, Manzebaach and Iernzerbaach run. The valley is surrounded by
Luxembourg Sandstone and small areas of
Steinmergelkeuper.
History
The town of Larochette used to be a small industrial hub. It was specialised in cloth mills on the river White Ernz from the end of the 18th century until the 1930s with some factories being active until the 1980s.
In the street ''Rue de Medernach'' was a spinning factory, which became a brush factory from the 1920s to 1986 and is nowadays an apartment complex. At the location of today's primary school and cultural center on the same road used to be an industrial complex with different industrial uses over the years. In the ''Rue Scheerbach'' were several textile factories that are now residential buildings, one of the industrial chimneys has been restored. Other remnants can be seen in a museum in a building of the former train station.
Larochette was part of the
narrow-gauge railway
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter cur ...
Larochette -
Cruchten that was operational from 1882 to 1948. It was also connected to another narrow-gauge railway that went to the quarries in
Ernzen over Heffingen-Soup. The planned connection to Junglinster was never finished. Still visible today are the train station buildings of Larochette, a train depot that is nowadays a petrol station and supermarket, as well as several bridges. Many sections are now part of the national cycle path network.
Population
Larochette has the highest proportion of
Portuguese-born inhabitants of any commune in Luxembourg, at 31.1% as of the 2021 census.
In 2017, Cape Verdean-born became mayor of Larochette, becoming the first
Lusophone
The Portuguese-speaking world, also known as the Lusophone world () or the Lusophony (''Lusofonia''), comprises the countries and territories in which the Portuguese language is an official, administrative, cultural, or secondary language. This ...
person to lead a Luxembourgish commune.
Gallery
File:Larochette 1.jpg
File:Larochette Castle - 5.jpg
File:Larochette Castle - 2.jpg
File:Larochette 7 rue Scheerbach 01.jpg
File:Croix de justice Larochette place Bleech 02.jpg
File:Fiels Déi al Gare.jpg
File:Ernzen, inauguration de la piste cyclable PC5.jpg
References
External links
*
Communes in Mersch (canton)
Towns in Luxembourg
{{Mersch-geo-stub