LL-L "History" 2008.02.10 (01) [E]

Sun Feb 10 18:17:03 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 10 February 2008 - Volume 01
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L History

I have been moving at the end of last year from Mortsel (Antwerp area) to
Steenokkerzeel (Brussels area)
cf. http://www.euro-support.be/temp/so.jpg (my house is not on this card)
I still am handicapped by lack of accessibility to my books since I still
have to set-up the racks before I can umpack. I found some books on local
history in antiquarian shops though.

Steenokkerzeel itself has historically 4 centers:
- *Steenokkerzeel *village
- *Ter Ham*
- *Wambeek* and
- *Hummelgem.*
In the 70s Steenokkerzeel further absorbed the municipalities of
- *Melsbroek* and
- *Perk*
The Western part of Steenokkerzeel and the Southern part of Melsbroek are
turned into airport area. Actually Brussels airport had its main building
originally in *Melsbroek* in the North of the airport, but left it to the
military and contructed the passengers building in the West in *Zaventem*.
The Cargo airport in the NorthWest is in *Machelen*. All these
municipalities are in Vlaanderen, not in the Brussels capital area.

Main roads crossing Steenokkerzeel are from North to South the* N227* from
Mechelen over Tervuren to Waterloo
and the *N21* linking Haacht in the East with the Brussels-North railway
station area in the West.

The *N227* replaces since 1840 the old "*Waalsche baan*". Main coach for the
upgrade at the time was the burgomaster of Steenokkerzeel *Louis van Frachen
* (cf. below).
**
The *N21* (Haachtse steenweg) is an upgrade of the former "Oude Brusselsche
Baen", originally the "*Keulsche Baen*". Traffic from Brussels to the East
was in the beginning of the 19th century drained to the *N2* to Leuven, a
few miles South of the N21, and since the seventies to the *E40 *motorway to
Liege, a few 100m further South.

The *N227* is very popular as escape route during rush hours for the Eastern
part of the Brussels Ring Motorway and the E19 to Antwerp. My house is on
the old N227, *van Frachenlaan*, adjacent to the new N227 (new little
ringway since a couple of years, between the church and the airport fence),
intended to relief the center of Steenokkerzeel from the intensive traffic.

My house is not only close to the insersection of the N227 and the N21
(about 300m), but also close (300m) to the intersection of runways *25R* and
*20* of Brussels airport.
*Namegiving of runways* is standardized: it is the degrees in the direction
on flies divided by 10. If there are parallel runways, R stands for Right
and L stans for Left.
All runways have a double numbering, depending of the direction of use.
Brussels has:
25R = 07L
25L = 07R
20 = 02
(there are 180 degrees difference between 250 and 70 and between 200 and 20)
Since most of the time we have wind from the west, the 25L is mostly used
for landing of passenger planes, while the *25R* is mostly used for
take-offs of all planes and for landings of cargo and military (since the
cargo and military airports are at the North). Most noise over here is when
there is wind coming from the East and they take off in the other direction
*07L* or 07R.

The place I live is marked as "*Het Cleyn Molenvelt*" on old maps, and is
part of "*Wambeek*". Wambeek was created as a formal municipality by the
French in the year III of the Revolution, but it was absorbed by
Steenokkerzeel in the year VIII (1799). Wambeek was a place of veneration of
the *Saint Pharaildis* ("Sint Veerle maagd" in more modern Dutch), daughter
of "*Theodoricus Witgerus, een machtigh Prince van Loreynen*". She is
represented with a bustard (trapgans in Dutch) under her arm.

The miracle of the bustard as told by Rosweydus:
*En onder andere wordt daer verhaelt, hoe dat sy nu out synde, in den winter
op haren acker met terwe besaeyt eene groote kudde trapganzen gevonden
heeft, de welcke sy als tamme ghedierten met haren stock t'huyswaert
gedreven ende in eenen stal opgesloten heeft, niet toelatende datmen eenigen
van die dooden soude.*
*Maer soo (ter wijle sy ter kercke was ghegaen) jemandt daar eene af gedoodt
ende met syne medghesellen ghegeten hadde, ende als sy des andere daeghs
willende die voghels vry laten wech gaen, gewaer wierdt dat daer eenen
gebrach, heeft van een kindt verstaen wat daer af gedaen was.*
*Siet een wonder werck: sy heeft de beenderen ende pluymen die daer af te
vinden waren, doen vergaderen, ende den voorseyden voghel is gheheel ende
levende gheworden ende sy heeft dien met de andere na syne ghewoonlijcke
weyden laten gaen.*
(she revived an eaten bustard from its remnants)

*Steen*okkerzeel originally formed together with *Neder*okkerzeel (now part
of Kampenhout) a larger area *Ochinsala*.
It was given by "Pepin of Herstal", together with "Ham", to the abbey of
Sint Truiden in the 8th century.
1076 Hocensele
1147 Hockenzela
Etymology:
*Sala*: Franconian for place
*Ochin*: different explanations in litterature:
- Diminutive of *Hukkon*, Hugo (Carnoy)
- *Hokko*, an abreviation of *Hueger, Hugbald* (De Vries).
*Steen*: most probably referring to a stronghold or fortress.

The area between Steenokkerzeel-center and Wambeek, a bit South of my house,
has recently completely been depleted of buildings (except for the old
graveyard). It is reportedly done for having a "fall" area in front of
runway 25R. We have much police interventions for chasing plane spotters
from the graves, especially on sunny Sundays as today (yesterday we had
record temperatures of 16.8 celsius for a 9th of February).
The roof on the castle on the top part of
http://www.euro-support.be/temp/so.jpg  has also been removed for air
traffic safety.

Except from air traffic noise, it is a very quit municipality, with an Aldi
for local food shopping, as most municipalities in this area. Sunday morning
though there is market on the place around the church, with about 80 trailer
booths, mostly offering cloting and food. It includes a large stand with
Moroccan food (offered by a company from the Antwerp suburb Borgerhout,
often called Borgerocco).
Public transportation is OK with a bus to the Brussels airport passenger
terminal every 30 min. (60 min in week-ends), from where there are railway
departures to Brussels every 20 minutes. There is also regular bus servicing
towards Brussels-North railway station, as also to Mechelen, Leuven, Haacht
and Vilvoorde).

Steenokkerzeel was part of the ban of Brussels in the old Duchy of Brabant.
This Brussels area is actually the real original "Brabant". When the
counts/dukes of Leuven acquired the Brussels territory, they changed the
overall name of their territory into Brabant.

Nowadays Steenokkerzeel is part of the Flemish green belt (*groene
gordel)*around Brussels. The French call it
*carcan* (belt in the sense of restriction). It is a hot political issue
since the bilingual territory of Brussels wants to expand, while from the
Flemish side one wants to protect the cultural and linguistic character of
the area.

When I do my shopping in nearby Kraainem (a Flemish minicipaly with
administrative facilities for French speaking inhabitants) e.g. in the
Brico, no sigle soul can understand me or services me when I speak Dutch.
They apparently find only French speaking personnel over there.
In Steenokkerzeel itself I hear quite some French speaking at e.g. the mail
office (De Post). French inhabitants are serviced in their language, a
facility Dutch speakers hardly get in Brussels or even not when shopping in
the Flemish municipalities with facilities.
I don't think French speakers nowadays have something "against" Dutch. It is
more laziness against learning it, since Flemish people generally are
willing to speak French with them. We do not make it easy for them either:
what I hear on the market place is 10 percent French, 20 percent Dutch and
70 percent Brabantish or strongly Brabantish-colored Dutch.
The municipality of Steenokkerzeel makes weekly publicity by distributing
leaflets for courses for learning Dutch for non-Dutch speakers.
After all it is quite difficult for legislators to turn social patterns of
behaviour.

Regards,
Roger

•

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