East Flanders

In the early twentieth century, Ghent, Belgium, made a massive switch to electric power for trams, street lighting, and harbour cranes. To meet the growing demand, the city commissioned the construction of coal-fired power stations.

Rising quietly beside the tracks of Oudenaarde Station in East Flanders, the old water tower is easy to overlook—yet it stands as a striking piece of industrial heritage.

A more than 100-year-old port crane waltzed around Antwerp's port docks until early this century.

At barely 25, Jules de Hemptinne stood at the cradle of a cotton spinning and weaving mill on the Kolveniersgang.

At the edge of a flooded clay pit, a rusting clay dredger recalls the mechanical mining of clay for the brick industry.

Trains have been thundering over the Vierendeel bridge in Grammene between Deinze and De Panne for over a century.

On Christmas Eve 1944, disaster struck Kalken when a V1 bomb hit the Vaart canal in Kalken at 4 pm.

In 1990, a Sherman tank was parked at Balgerhoeke lock in Eeklo in honour of the Canadians who liberated the town from German occupation on 15 September 1944.

In 1967, Ghent's municipal electric power plant was expanded with a brand-new building that housed three giant diesel engines.

Melle, near Ghent, was once the walhalla for flower and ornamental cultivation. Greenhouses, florist houses and horticultural businesses flanked the roads.