Calais tour

CALAIS is an interesting combination of history and modernity. Stand in the modern Place d'Armes, the main square close to the Watch Tower, and you are in the former mediaeval heart of old Calais, the walled town visited by a succession of English monarchs during the occupation of this French enclave from 1347 to 1558.

But if you walk just 300 metres or so in a southerly direction, you enter the comparatively new part of Calais, which was largely a British-inspired development dating from 1840.

Time and war have taken their toll on old Calais but relics of its colourful past still remain. Large sections of the old walls are preserved at the Citadelle and the massive bulk of the Watch Tower, built in 1229, dominates the Place d'Armes.

The church tower of Notre Dame, constructed during the English occupation, is gradually being restored to its former splendour.

The quayside in the oldest part of the port is also still intact but to appreciate historic Calais you should see the model of the old town in the Municipal Museum (Musee des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle) in Rue Richelieu, off Rue Royale. Straddling the

old and new areas is the imposing Town Hall completed in 1925 and worth visiting if only to see that moving Rodin sculpture The Six Burghers of Calais, which is in the gardens outside.

The new town in Calais is an example of British enterprise unique on the European mainland. Here a Little England was created with factories and houses for 5,000 workers from Nottingham, who were brought over to set up a lace industry in France.

The relics of this vast undertaking can still be found in the warren of streets that run off the Boulevard Jacquard. The Municipal Museum also has a department devoted to lace-making in the town.

Outside Calais, British visitors can walk along the Pale, the frontier that divided English Calais from its French

hinterland. Until 1558 this remained the last English foothold on the Continent, extending in a semi-circle from Wissant in the west to Oye Plage in the east.

When its 200 years of occupation did come to an end, Mary Tudor, Queen of England, declared: "When I die, Calais will be engraved on my heart."

In the countryside little remains to mark this period of English domination. The one outstanding monument is the church at Leulinghen, near Marquise on the A16 heading south towards Boulogne.

This church actually straddled the border so that the French and English congregations were able to enter through separate doors from their respective countries without ever meeting. The outlines of these doors are still visible in the walls today.