History
The house is more than two centuries old and was once part of a large farm. The little cottage next to the house was known in the neighborhood as ’the little paradise’. When the bread oven of the farm fell apart, the farmer decided to build a new oven in the small residential house. Thus it became a stable-storeroom-oven of the farm.
The picture shows our house on the far left, next to the original small bakery next door.
At the start of World War II, some soldiers were stationed in the house. Their mission was to guard the bridge over the river in case the enemy should try to take it. Belgium, however, gave up the fight after just 10 days, and the soldiers were dismissed. The resistance began to organize themselves and used the cottage to hide weapons. During the renovation, we found war ammunition and a grenade that was still "alive", hidden in crevices and holes in the wall. The demining service of the army had to come in order to remove all hazardous stuff. The grenade was detonated in the quarry of Aisne.
In the picture you can see the bridge, La Goutte and La Grande Goutte
When the large farm was divided into three lots in the 70s the new owner installed the oil fuel reservoir for his central heating in the little house on the left and used it as a storeroom for his garden tools. When I bought it in 2010 it was very polluted and in poor condition. Only the thick walls remained, all the rest
has been renovated. The photo shows the house as it looked before the rebuilding works in 2010.