The farm
‘La Cense” was also called Ferme Fortemps (XXth century) or Ferme Quinot (XIXth century), the two farmer families who owned this wonderful place. “La Cense” is a square building around an inner courtyard, located on the Place de Mélin and built in white “Gobertange” stone and bricks.
The buildings date mainly from the XVIIth to the XIXth century. We see evidence of the original functions of farm of yesteryear: entrance by a porch with a dovecote, paved courtyard with a central part formerly reserved for manure (now a green lawn), the main living quarters, the stables, the well, the barn, the bread oven as well as the pigsties. The farm is no longer in operation.
Florence and Serge acquired the then ruined farm buildings in 1987. After 2 years of hard work, they were able to settle with their children in part of the buildings. Persevering over many years, they step by step restored all the parts of “La Cense” respecting the old local building traditions.
For the love of the white stone and its combination with red brick, Serge was among the founders of Qualité Village Mélin, an association whose objective is the protection of architectural and landscape heritage as well as the promotion of associative village life.
Mélin and the Gobertange stone
The Gobertange stone is a white “calcaire gréseux” quarried between Jodoigne and Hoegaarden and dates back to a deposit during the Middle Lutetian period, about 48 million years ago, when the area was a shallow and rather tropical marine bay. The stones are found in a sand bed at an average depth of 9 to 20 meters.
It was quarried manually for a long time by means of wells/bores, tampers and galleries. Today, there is only one open-cast quarry left in the next-door Hamlet of Hussompont. The extraction work still happens very occasionally with crane and truck.
The stone was used for a good number of buildings in Lathuy, Mélin, Gobertange, St Remy-Geest, but also for important buildings in the area: Chateau Pastur, Hotel des Libertés, la Vicomté, Eglise St Médard in Jodoigne,… Collegiale of Tirlemont,…
It was also used for buildings throughout the country: The famous City Hall of Brussels, the Cathedral St Michel & Gudule in Brussels, St Peter’s Cathedral in Leuven,…
The “Vallée Blanche”
The White Valley is the name often given to the surrounding villages were the stone was quarried.
The valley comprises the villages/hamlets: Lathuy, Mélin, Gobertange, St Remy-Geest where the extraction was mainly done, but also Jodoigne, Ste Marie Geest, St Jean-Geest, Mont-à-Lumay, Zetrud-Lumay. These old buildings often used the white stone combined with red bricks.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VILLAGES OF WALLONIA
The association “Les Plus Beaux Villages de Wallonie” (The Most Beautiful Villages of Wallonia) was created in 1994 by Mr. Alain COLLIN (then living in the village of Chardeneux) to promote the identity of each of the Walloon rural regions. The diversity of its landscapes and its traditional buildings forms an exceptional and privileged natural and architectural heritage, which the association hopes to preserve and promotes. It has a network of 31 villages labeled among the landscape regions of Wallonia. For more information : https://beauxvillages.be/en/
