In the 13th century, Dame Gisèle, a Benedictine nun in Brussels wished to move to the Cistercians, an order founded in 1098 as a stricter branch of the Benedictines. Her superiors at Brussels’ Sainte Gudule chapter resisted the move and she had to obtain support in high places. With the assistance of the Duke Henri the First, she was allowed to acquire a vast peace of land in the Forêt de Soignes, around the spring of a little stream called the Maalbeek. She established a new abbey and named it after the room where Mary, mother of Christ, was supposed to have lived according to Christian mythology (the Camera Mariae): the Abbaye de La Cambre was born.

Right from the start the Abbey was very wealthy, with a vast expand of lands, including what is now the Bois de La Cambre, along with large areas of farmland in Flanders. At that time Ixelles was but a small village far away from Brussels, and there was ample room to erect buildings. Nowadays many of the remaining buildings date from the XIVth and XVIth centuries, including the nice Gothic church. From the start the place was a centre of teaching, with its boarding school that soon became very reputed. The Abbey still hosts part of the famous Cambre Achool of Visual Arts and Belgium’s National Geography Institute. French-style gardens have been added in the XIXth century, which form nice terraces up to Avenue Louise.

In the parks that surround the étangs d’Ixelles, leading to Place Flagey, you will find statues of Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, Camille Lemonier, a Belgian writer, and many other monuments. Already in the XIXth century the étangs were renowned to offer a place for charming and picturesque walks in Ixelles. The writer Hymans described it as follows:

« Il y avait, au bord des eaux, des guinguettes, où la bière brabançonne arrosait la gaufre dorée, et qui durant les belles après-midi de congé du printemps et de l’été, retentissaient des refrains et des cris d’enfants. Là, sur la cote, s’étageait, au centre des tonnelles, la Maison Rouge. Autour des étangs où se balançaient des verdures aquatiques, couraient des sentiers, au coin desquels des fermes et des métairies, demeures rustiques, égarées aux portes d’une Capitale, ouvraient leurs volets verts… »

Originally there were three ponds, but at the end of the XIXth century the third pond was filled and became the Place Sainte-Croix, later renamed Place Flagey. In the thirties the place was redeveloped around the Maison de la Radio, nowadays a cultural centre simply called “Flagey”.

Sources and further reading:

Adisc

Abbaye de La Cambre et Etangs d’Ixelles

Wikipedia article on Etangs d’Ixelles

Eurobru

Popularity: 9% [?]