From, Beautiful Buildings in France & Belgium, Including many which have been destroyed during the war. Reproductions in Colour and Monochrome from rare old Prints and Drawings, by and after Prout, Boys, Coney, W. Callow, David Roberts, C. Wild and others, with descriptive notes by C. Harrison Townsend, F.R.I.B.A.; New York: The Hubbell Publishing Co., 1916; pp. 14-16.
ABBEVILLE : RUE DE RIVAGE
(T. S. Boys)
HE old fortress-town of Abbeville is still quaint and picturesque, though the River Somme, on the banks of which it stands, has lost through canalization much of the charm of Boys’ sketch.
It was a cheerful, thriving place, with a miniature inland harbour and many cloth-looms at work in its busy days. Abbeville makes historic appeal to Englishman as having passed to the English Crown in 1272, when it formed part of the dowry of the bride of Edward I, and as having remained an appanage of our sovereigns some two 16 hundred years. After the English domination it was ceded to the Duke of Burgundy, and in 1477 it was finally annexed to France by Louis XI.
Its narrow, quiet streets, with their many quaint gables and dark arches, are full of charm for the artist. Among the picturesque old houses that appeal to him, that known as the Maison de François Ier, dating from the XVIth century, is the most remarkable.
Copyright © 2007 by Elfinspell