^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Villers-le-Bouillet (Municipality, Province of Liège, Belgium)

Municipal flag of Villers-le-Bouillet - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 11 January 2008

Presentation of Villers-le-Bouillet and its villages
Municipal flag of Villers-le-Bouillet

See also:

Presentation of Villers-le-Bouillet and its villages

The municipality of Villers-le-Bouillet (6,110 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 3,271 ha) is located near Huy, in the region of Hesbaye. The municipality of Villers-le-Bouillet is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Villers-le-Bouillet, Fize-Fontaine, Vaux-et-Borset, Vieux-Waleffe and Warnant-Dreye.

Villers-le-Bouillet was already settled in the Neolithic. Remains of a Roman villa have been found near the border with the villages of Warnant and Fize, maybe the villa at the origin of the name of the village. A bouillet is locally a wet place; added to the name of the village in the XVIth century, "le-Bouillet" reflects the presence of wet lands, brooks and ponds on the village territory.
In the Middle Ages, the village was shared between abbeys, chapters and local lords, the most important of them being the lords of Amay. The village was sacked during the Liège uprisings in 1328 and 1465; in 1693, the French army set up a camp in the village, which was plundered once again.
Beside agriculture, Villers-le-Bouillet lived from stone, alum and coal extraction. The oldest mentioned coal pits date back to 1606; there were some 70 pits in 1800, groupe in five collieries employing 103 workers. The number of workers increased to 166 in 1819. Coal extraction ended after the Second World War.

Fize-Fontaine was part of the domain of Sainte-Ode, ran by the Bishops of Liège from the collegiate church of Amay and later transferred to the St. Lambert chapter in Liège. The name of the village is derived from "fief"; local lords had a castle in the village, which was destroyed during the War of the Awans and the Waroux, rebuilt, and destroyed again in 1328 during the Liège uprising against Prince-Bishop Adolphe de la Marck.

Vaux-et-Borset was settled in the Paleolithic, in the Neolithic and in the Celt, Roman and Merovingian periods. The village was mentioned for the first time in 1095 when Werner de Grez transferred a plot of land he owned in the village to the Chapter of Fosses. All over the Ancient Regime, the administrative situation of the village was complicated: the village was ran jointly by the Chapter of Fosses and the lords of Seraing while the castle belonged to the la Marck. In the XIXth century, marl was extracted in Vaux-et-Borset as a fertilizer and also as a supply to the earthenware factory of Andenne.

Vieux Waleffe, originally settled in the Neolithic, is the mother parish of Waleffe-Saint-Pierre and Waleffe-Saint-Georges, two villages forming the former municipality of Les Waleffes, incorporated into Faimes in 1976. Waleffe is an hydronym referring to the valley formed by the brook that has its source near the castle and flows into the Mehaigne. Vieux Waleffe, mentioned for the first time in 1050, was a free domain.

Warnant, already settled in the Roman period, was mentioned for the first time in 1137, as part of the County of Moha, which was transferred to the Prince-Bishop of Liège around 1225. Warnant was then ran by the Court of Wanze. The village was destroyed in 1636 by the Croatian militia led by Jean de Weerdt, and again by the French troops that camped here in 1695. The lords of Warnant are the oldest lineage in the Prinicpality of Liège; after the destruction of their castle in the XIIIth century, they built another castle outside the village and took the name of Oultremont (lit., "beyond the mount").
The sugar beet processing factory founded in 1872 in Warnant to supply the sugar house of Wanze, employed up to 141 workers and was closed in 1925. Dreye, merged with Warnant in 1823, was most probably founded by the canons of the abbey of Flône, who organized the clearing of the area.

Source: Municipal website

Ivan Sache, 10 December 2007

Description of the flag

The municipal flag of Villers-le-Bouillet is horizontally divided yellow-red (1:2), with two red miner's picks crossed per saltire in the yellow stripe and a sheaf of five yellow wheat spikes in the red stripe.
According to Armoiries communales en Belgique. Communes wallonnes, bruxelloises et germanophones, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 30 December 1993 and confirmed by the Executive of the French Community on 6 October 1994.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms.

Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 10 December 2007