Bruay-la-Buissière (; vls, Bruwaei, pcd, Brouay-l'Bussière) is a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

.INSEE commune file
/ref>

Geography

A former

coalmining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

town some southwest of

Béthune Béthune ( ; archaic and ''Bethwyn'' historically in English) is a city in northern France, sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department. Geography Béthune is located in the former province of Artois. It is situated south-east of Calais, ...

and southwest of

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

, at the junction of the D57 and the N47 roads.

History

With four

coal mines Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

, it was the headquarters of the Bruay Mining Company. The coal mines closed during the 1960s, to be replaced by light industrial work and chemical factories. In April 1972 the murder of miner's daughter Brigitte Dewevre became a politicized event when Pierre Leroy, a local middle-class lawyer associated with the local mining company, was arrested: ''La Cause du Peuple'', the paper of the Maoist

Gauche prolétarienne The (GP) was a French Maoist political party which existed from 1968 to 1974. As Christophe Bourseiller has put it, "Of all the Maoist organizations after May 1968, the most important numerically as well as in cultural influence was without quest ...

, publicized the case with the headline 'Bruay: And Now They Are Massacring Our Children!' The two former communes of Bruay-en-Artois and Labuissière were joined as one commune in 1987. Fosse n° 3 de Bruay

Population

The population data given in the table and graph below for 1982 and earlier refer to the former commune of Bruay-en-Artois.

Sights

* The Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall), 47 m tall built in 1927. The windows recount scenes from the lives of miners. * The

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

swimming pool, built in 1936 (the last remaining Art Deco pool open to the public) * The Museum of mining. * The Church of Saint Martin, dating from the fifteenth century, was expanded and renovated in 1974. * Ballencourt manor in Labuissière, was built in 1777. Partially renovated, it now hosts the music school. * The

donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in ...

of the castle of La Buissière, built in 1310 by

Mahaut, Countess of Artois Mahaut of Artois also known as Mathilda (1268 27 November 1329), ruled as Countess of Artois from 1302 to 1329. She was furthermore regent of the County of Burgundy from 1303 to 1315 during the minority and the absence of her daughter, Joan II, ...

. * The church at Labuissière, presently closed to the public for renovation work. * The Velodrome at Labuissière built by the Bruay Mining Co., in 1925. * The Museum of calculation and Scripture. Traces the history of writing and calculating machines such as the

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family ...

German coding machine.

References

External links