Valognes

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Valognes
Valognes coat of arms
Valognes (France)
Valognes
region Normandy
Department Some
Arrondissement Cherbourg
Canton Valognes (main town)
Community association Cotentine
Coordinates 49 ° 31 ′  N , 1 ° 28 ′  W Coordinates: 49 ° 31 ′  N , 1 ° 28 ′  W
height 19-87 m
surface 15.63 km 2
Residents 6,803 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 435 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 50700
INSEE code 50615
Website www.mairie-valognes.fr

Vicq d'Azir square and Saint-Malo church in the background

Valognes is a commune with 6803 inhabitants (at January 1, 2017) in the department of Manche in the region of Normandy . It belongs administratively to the Arrondissement of Cherbourg and is the capital of the canton of Valognes of the same name . The inhabitants of the municipality are called Valognais .

Toponymy

Valognes is derived from the Latin vallis ( German valley), with the toponymic Latin suffix -onia. Alleaume is a neighborhood. Alauna is derived from the Gallic, and probably means height (there is an uncertainty, see Les Moitiers-d'Allonne also on the Cotentin peninsula ).

geography

The municipality is located around 20 km south of Cherbourg on the Merderet River in the center of the Cotentin peninsula . In the north-east lies the Val de Saire , in the south-east lies the Plain , in the north-west lies La Hague and in the south-west lies the Côte des Isles .

Neighboring communities are:

Transport links

Valognes is at the intersection of seven streets. Two come from Brittany and the Paris Basin and five others radiate to the 200 km long coast of the Cotentin peninsula.

Valognes is served by the Manéo No. 1 bus line operated by the Manche department ( Saint-Lô - Carentan -Valognes- Cherbourg bus line ).

Trains on the Paris-Cherbourg railway stop in Valognes.

history

The city is located near the Gallo-Roman city of Alauna or Alaunia (today a district is called Alleaume).

When the then 19-year-old Duke Wilhelm was in Valognes in 1047 , he was warned of a conspiracy by the Knights of Western Normandy who refused to recognize his rule. He fled south-east and crossed the Baie des Veys that night . For fear of being recognized, he avoided the cities. He arrived in the Bayeux area , where he was received by a loyal knight and led by his sons to Falaise . He asked the French King Henry I for help. Together with the French army, he won in Val-ès-Dunes .

Valognes was heavily fortified during the Middle Ages, but was sacked by Edward III of England in the Hundred Years War . The castle was completely destroyed by Louis XIV . The heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries, of which numerous city palaces still tell us today, earned the city the nickname "Versailles of Normandy". Today Valognes bears the official title of "City of Culture and History" after the Americans landed in 1944, despite considerable destruction during Operation Overlord . The 14th century church of Notre Dame , which had the only Gothic dome (from 1612) in France, was destroyed in the course of the battle between the Germans and the Allies.

During the Second World War, there was an internment camp in Valognes in the rooms of the occupied Hôtel du Mesnildot de la Grille (Institution Sainte-Marie, 18 rue des Religieuses). It is said to be the only camp in France where the German occupying forces carried out forced sterilization of Sinti and Roma women.

Population development

year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2007 2016
Residents 5481 5932 5871 6727 7412 7537 7235 6779
Sources: Cassini and INSEE

Economy and Infrastructure

Valognes is an old center of agricultural markets and fairs as well as trade and handicrafts. In addition to milk processing, there are now industrial joinery, clothing and construction businesses.

Valognes is of great importance for the nearby La Hague reprocessing plant , as the Valognes train station is the loading point for nuclear waste containers between road and rail transports on the Paris-Cherbourg railway line.

Valognes has a grammar school ( Lycée ), two colleges and seven kindergartens and primary schools.

Attractions

  • Ruins of the Roman thermal baths in the Alleaume district (Latin: Alauna).
  • Hôtel Beaumont, city palace of the nobility from the 18th century ("Versailles of Normandy") with grand staircase and French garden.
  • Parish Church of Saint Malo. After destruction in 1944 and reconstruction, present today: Gothic choir (15th century) as well as church nave and tower reconstruction from the post-war period (1957 to 1962, architect: Yves-Marie Froidevaux)
  • The old royal Benedictine abbey founded in 1625 and converted into a hospital in 1810.
  • The cider -Museum (Cider Museum) in the "Maison du Grand Quartier", a former dyeing the river Merderet, listed building dating from the 15th century.
  • The former seminary was built in 1654 on the site of the old castle of the bishops of Coutances (today: Lycée Henri Cornat).
  • Benedictine Abbey "Notre-Dame de Protection". Originally a Capuchin monastery from 1630 to 1789; Badly destroyed in 1944 and rebuilt from 1955 to 1957 (architect: Jacques Prioleau). Church window by Léon Zack . Painting "Adoration of the Shepherds" by Laurent de La Hyre (1641).
  • Hôtel de Thieuville: City palace from the 17th century, since 1986 "Musée de l'eau de vie et des vieux métiers" (Calvados and Local History Museum).

Town twinning

Personalities

The list is sorted chronologically by year of birth.

Web links

Commons : Valognes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Etymology of valley
  2. ↑ René Lepelley. Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de communes de Normandie . Page 263.
  3. ↑ René Lepelley. Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de communes de Normandie . Page 177.
  4. ↑ Map of Manéo (French)
  5. ^ Alleaume website Wikimanche (French).
  6. ^ Gallo-Roman thermal baths of Alleaume website Wikimanche (French).
  7. ^ Marc Morris: The Norman Conquest. Windmill books 2013. Pages 56–58. ISBN 978-0-09-953744-1 .
  8. ^ Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust, London and New York, 3rd Edition 2002, Map 182, p. 141