Fountain-Valmont

Fountain-Valmont (in Walloon Fontinne-Våmont ) is a section of the common Belgian of Merbes-the-Castle, located in Walloon region in the Province of Hainaut, on the Sambre.

It was a commune with whole share before the fusion of the communes of 1977.

Known in the past under the name of Fountain-el-Mount and Fountain-el-Valley, Fountain-Valmont is a rich village of its past of membership of the historical abbeys. On the territory of Fountain-Valmont, the farm of Dansonspenne is. The farm of Dansonspenne is an exploitation created by the monks of Lobbes about the 9th century, then allotted to the abbey of Alder in 1171. It is between 1529 and 1556 that the current farms of Dansonspenne to the site of the old farm were rebuilt, of which there remains only part of extremely old wall. The abbey of Alder had to be solved, towards half of the 16th century, to lease the supposed one of Dansonspenne to the laic ones. Divided, initially in three farms, it was redistributed a little later in two equal parts, then reorganized with S. Dansonspenne was at the beginning of the century, one of the largest farms of Belgium, with its 260 hectares. Fountain-Valmont is also an important archeological site. In 1954, one put at the day on the plate of Castellains the remainders of a vast unit crowned with Roman Thermes and temples dating from the beginning of the Christian era. Nowadays, with Fountain-Valmont, all speaks about culture and breeding. By here, one practiced a long time the breeding of the draft horse successfully. The territory of Fountain-Valmont even kept traces of Gallo-Roman habitat. In 1955, air photography made it possible to detect with Fountain-Valmont, commune bathed by Sambre, a monumental unit arranged for seasonal meetings.

During systematic excavations, the site, which delivered all its mysteries yet, revealed some fifteen buildings, of which a hotel trade and thermal baths… but neither paved street, neither private habitat, nor industrial center…

Thermal baths learnedly laid out…

With three hundred meters in the south of the temples, to fifty of the Eastern limit of the triangular plate of Castellains, on levels 164 and 165, the remainders of thermal baths were released of which entire surface reached 2.400 m ². Their construction was particularly neat. They delivered two hypocaustes, linked to the hearth by a Voûte and heating a Caldarium and a Tepidarium, to which continuation a Frigidarium and a Unguentarium made. The entry of the thermal baths, announced by a furnace bridge of ceramics similar to those which spread out between the principal Fanum and the Eastern limit of the Temenos, gave on a gallery dominating a Palestre, leading itself to basins, one opened, the other protected by a lean-to building covered from tiles. The unit was dominated by an esplanade with water tower, recovering two mud tanks crossed by conduits feeding, on the one hand, the caldarium and the frigidarium, and other, the basins open and cover. The slopes and contrepentes of the site were learnedly used for the adduction of fresh water and the evacuation of waste water.

A Aqueduct rectilinear and underground, a length of 2 400 m, fed the water tower located at level 165. Its water came from a brook, torrential at the time, running in extreme cases southernmost of the commune of Fountain-Valmont. They were collected in artificial a water behavior, drowning the valley, and limited to the south by an enormous stopping whose later stones were precipitated in the current bed of the brook. The surface of the tank reached coast 170 from where water ran out in the aqueduct, on the level where seems to be arranged a basin pulsor. At the place of its collecting, the brook is engulfed in a " engorgeoir" to re-appear with two kilometers downstream. It is probable that this " engorgeoir" , by a set of valves, could act as regulating basin in the event of surplus of flow.

The situation of the thermal baths was such as they could be used as baths of lustration to the excessively pious people who went to the close temples and with the fountains which were worth its name with the locality, but undoubtedly were also attended by the users of the buildings built in the west of the baths.

Castle

There exists a castle on the territory of Fountain-Valmont, the Durot castle, holding its name of former owners. It is of Napoleonean style although former because it was rebuilt at the 19th century.

Sources

According to Germaine FAIDER-FEYTMANS, Castellains with Fountain-Valmont , in " Belgium de César with Clovis" , in Files of archeology , nº March 21st, th and th - April 1977.

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