Neufchâtel-Hardelot is a French commune located in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region. The municipal territory is divided into two geographically distant and very different socio-economic areas: the village of Neufchâtel and the “upscale” seaside resort of Hardelot-Plage. Until 1954, the town bore the name of Neufchâtel, Hardelot was only a station attached to the village.
A secondary Roman road linking Boulogne-sur-Mer to
Étaples passed through Neufchâtel-Hardelot, to the hamlet of the
path, coming from Condette through the Hardelot forest and going
towards Dannes. According to some sources, this hamlet also ended
(there is discussion on the subject), the
Lillebonne-Boulogne-sur-Mer route.
At the end of the 7th
century, the warrens of Neufchâtel, known as “Mont Saint-Frieux”,
housed a village at an altitude of 153 meters. Legend has it that
two hermit brothers lived there, Judoc and Férioc.
The
latter's French name is Saint Férieux, which would have given its
name to Saint-Frieux. Judoc is honored to him under the name of
Saint Josse. On the site of their hermitage would have been built a
chapel. In the church of Saint-Pierre de Neufchâtel, four
stained-glass windows still retrace the life of these two brothers
today: on the right side in the chapel of the Sacred Heart, that of
Saint Frieux, on the left side in the chapel of the Rosary, that of
Saint Josse.
After 1237, the holder of the seigneury of the
Maréchallerie in Neufchâtel, was one of the four hereditary peers
(peerage) of the county of Boulogne, he bears the title of marshal.
The Duke of Burgundy Philippe le Bold, (Philippe II of
Burgundy), was present in Neufchâtel in March 1392 ː he sent letters
from the village in favor of the city of Arras.
In 1664,
Neufchâtel presented the remains of a camp considered to be a former
Roman camp.
The commune of Neufchâtel, between Dannes and
Condette, was between 1790 and 1801 a village of 821 inhabitants
living on an area of 2,088 hectares. It belonged to the bailliage
of Choquel and Bellefontaine. The name of Neufchâtel would have its
origin in a fortified castle, the castle of Bellefontaine, which was
swallowed up by quicksand. Was this the “Novum Castellum” which
would have given its name to Neufchâtel. Many historians say so.
Still, we find for the first time the name of Neufchâtel in 1173 and
in 1199 in the charter of Samer.
During storms or mists,
strandings sometimes occur. Wrecks are refloated or the remains are
sold in the hinterland. For example, on October 8, 1813, an English
ship, the Doubt loaded with iron and coal, broke entirely "by taking
land on the coast of the commune of Neufchatel"; its cargo was
entirely lost and 5 of the 8 crew members perished.
During
the nineteenth century and this essentially under the Second Empire
and the Third Republic, a major campaign, subsidized by the State,
was launched to plant marigolds and to control and stabilize the
dunes. Neufchâtel was then confronted with the advance of these and
one feared to see the hamlet of the Chemin swallowed up by the
advance of the sand.
In the first half of the twentieth
century, in 1905, Hardelot-Plage was strongly developed, in
particular thanks to its founder John Whitley, an English patron,
who wanted to make Hardelot the new fashionable seaside resort and
the social center of sports . The name of Hardelot comes from that
of an old fortified castle in the town of Condette, the latter was
at the time the property of John Whitley.
The addition of
Hardelot to the name of the town was made in 1954.
Neufchâtel-Hardelot is located on the edge of the English Channel, on
the Opal Coast, at the mouth of the Becque d'Hardelot.
It is
located as the crow flies about 12 km south of Boulogne-sur-Mer as well
as 40 km from Calais and 100 km from Lille as the crow flies.
It
belongs to the agglomeration community of Boulonnais, to the natural
region of Boulonnais and to the regional natural park of Caps et Marais
d'Opale.
The territory of the commune is located in the Artois-Picardie basin.
The town is crossed by the Longpré stream, a 2.99 km non-navigable
natural watercourse, which originates in the town and flows into the
Écames stream at the level of the town of Condette.
The town is located at the junction of two landscapes as defined in
the landscape atlas of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, designed by the
regional directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing (DREAL) .
the “Montreuil landscape”, which concerns 98 municipalities, is
delimited: to the west by cliffs which, with the retreat of the sea,
have given rise to low fields bordered by dunes; to the north by the
buttonhole of Boulonnais; to the south by the vast plateau formed by the
Authie valley, and to the east by the landscapes of Ternois and
Haut-Artois. This regional landscape, with, in its central axis, the
Canche valley and its many tributaries such as the Course, the
Créquoise, the Planquette, etc., offers an alternation of valleys and
plateaus, called “Montreuille undulations”. In this landscape, and more
particularly on the plateaux, sugar beet, wheat and maize are grown, and
the plateaux between the Ternoise and the Créquoise are covered with
vast forest massifs such as the forest of Hesdin, the woods of Fressin,
Sains-lès-Fressin, Créquy…
the “landscape of the dunes and
estuaries of Opale”, which concerns 23 municipalities, extends along the
coast for about 30 kilometers, from the bay of Authie to Équihen-Plage,
and for two to four kilometers wide. The landscapes of dunes and
estuaries give way to steep cliffs at Equihen-Plage. The coastal dunes
have been formed recently, since the Middle Ages, and have invaded the
interior relief by forming dunes flat on the fossil cliffs, a local
specificity. The resurgence of springs at the foot of these cliffs come
from the chalk sheet and are the source of many streams and wetlands in
the Bas-Champs, especially visible between Étaples and Rang-du-Fliers.
This landscape of dunes and estuaries of Opal is made up of: a little
more than 40% dunes and beaches, 28% of which are dune areas, some of
which are wooded as in Hardelot-Plage and Le Touquet-Paris-Plage ; 22
and 25% in Authie Bay and Bas Champs, Bas Champs mainly in grasslands;
20% by the municipalities and a little more than 5% by the rivers and
the back-coastal marshes, between Merlimont and Rang-du-Fliers, such as
the Balançon marsh defined as the Natura 2000 network.
Located on the edge of the English Channel, Neufchâtel-Hardelot has a
marked oceanic climate. Thermal amplitudes are low, winters are mild and
summers are cool. Frost and snow days are few.
The weather is
unstable because of the very frequent and sometimes violent winds, which
influence the climate depending on their direction. The prevailing winds
coming from the west (seafront) bring relatively pure air and push the
clouds towards the back-coast. There are also cold winds from the north
or east. Precipitation is lower than the national average but is
nevertheless more frequent.