Wimereux

Wimereux

Wimeruwe
Wimereux Wimeruwe
Commune
	Wimereux
	Coat of arms
	Location of Wimereux
	Wimereux Wimereux
	Coordinates: 50°46′N 1°37′E / 50.77°N 1.61°E
Country	France
Region	Hauts-de-France
Department	Pas-de-Calais
Arrondissement	Boulogne-sur-Mer
Canton	Boulogne-sur-Mer-1
Intercommunality	Boulonnais
Government
• Mayor (2020–2026)	Jean-Luc Dubaële
Area 1	7.71 km2 (2.98 sq mi)
Population (2021)	6,358
• Density	820/km2 (2,100/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	62893 /62930
Elevation	0–71 m (0–233 ft)
	1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Wimereux (French: [vim(ə)ʁø]; West Flemish: Wimeruwe) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France.^[3]

Geography

Wimereux is a coastal town 5 kilometres (3 mi) north of Boulogne-sur-Mer, thus in the Boulonnais (land area), at the junction of the D233 and the D940 roads, on the banks of the small river or large stream, the Wimereux. The river Slack forms the northern limit of this commune, the straight, relatively low shore with the English Channel the western. Farming, leisure, care, public sector work and tourism are its main economic activities with a sizeable retired year-round-resident population.

History

At Pointe-aux-Oies, dolmen can still be seen at a Stone Age prehistoric site.

Vauban built a coastal fort at the mouth of the river Wimereux, the ruins showed at low-tide until the 1940s. Napoleon ordered a port to be built here between 1803 and 1804, taking its name from the river. In 1840, the future Napoleon III, first president (and last monarch) of France, landed at Pointe aux Oies.

The territory of Wimereux originally belonged to the commune of Wimille, from which it separated on 28 May 1899. In the same year, the first radio link between France and England was established at Wimereux in March by Guglielmo Marconi.^[4]

In the First World War, Boulogne and Wimereux formed an important hospital centre and until June 1918, the medical units used Wimereux communal cemetery for burials. Lady Hadfield set up and ran a Red Cross hospital here at her own expense for the treatment of wounded and sick servicemen.^[5] The Women's Hospital Corps, founded by Flora Murray and Louisa Garratt Anderson, opened their second hospital in Wimereux, on request of the RAMC. It was the first women's hospital to be recognised by the British Army.^[6] Colonel John McCrae, the Canadian gunner and doctor who wrote the popular war poem "In Flanders Fields", served and died in the hospital and is buried here.

Wimereux was the headquarters of the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps. In 1916, Solomon J Solomon set up a Royal Engineers establishment, the Special Works Park, in a disused feldspar factory. Here were developed new military camouflage techniques and equipment for the British Army.^[7] It became the General Headquarters of the British Army in 1919.

During the Second World War, German Naval Headquarters were situated on the northern side of the town. After D-Day, as Allied forces moved northwards, the town was shelled from Cap Gris Nez, and was re-taken by the Canadian 1st Army on 22 September 1944.

The seaside development was started during the Second Empire, resulting in a remarkable architectural ensemble of houses and buildings typical of the Belle Époque, which are still very well maintained to this day. Originally the secondary residence of wealthy families of Lille and Paris, Wimereux has become a residential suburb of Boulogne and also attracts Britons and Belgians who come to buy holiday homes or settle permanently.

Places of interest

The church of the Immaculate Conception, dating from the twentieth century
The nineteenth-century chapel of Notre-Dame
The Villa 'Les Mauriciens'
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery

People

William Morrison Wyllie, English artist
Lionel Percy Smythe (stepson of William Morrison Wyllie), English landscape artist, lived here from 1879 to 1918
Alfred Mathieu Giard, zoologist and director of the marine research establishment at Wimereux
John McCrae, author of "In Flanders Fields", is buried in the CWGC cemetery^[8]
Jack Lang, politician and one-time government minister
Maurice Boitel, artist, exhibited here in the 1980s and 1990s