Last modified: 2008-04-05 by ivan sache
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![[Flag of Sprimont]](../images/b/be-wlgsp.gif)
Municipal flag of Sprimont - image by Arnaud Leroy, 24 November 2007
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The municipality of Sprimont (12,950 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 7,428 ha) is located 20 km south of Liège. The municipality of Sprimont is made since 1976 of the former muniicpalities of Sprimont, Dolembreux, Gomzé-Andoumont, Louveigné and Rouvreux.
Sprimont is known for its blue stone quarries. The boom of the quarries dates back to 1883, when the Dutch engineer Mathieu Van Roggen brought electricity to the quarries
and then to the village of Sprimont; Van Roggen then funded the
building ot the town hall, of the municipal park and school and of the
workers' circle located close to the church.
Hubert Pahaut (1835-1914) founded a kind of quarry workers' unions and
was able to explain the workers' claims to the Governor of the Province
of Liège, who accepted most of them.
On 17-18 September 1794, the battle of Sprimont, aka Battle of Esneux and Battle of the Ourthe, opposed the French revolutionary army to the Austrian troops. The French victory caused the withdraw of Austria from the Low Countries and the end of the Ancient Regime there.
The Marian sanctuary of Banneux is located on the municipal territory of Sprimont (Louveigné) in the once very isolated hamlet of Banneux. From 15 January to 2 March 1933, the Blessed Virgin appeared eight times, introducing herself as "The Poor's Virgin", to Mariette Béco, aged 11. A chapel was built in 1933, while the apparitions were officialized by His Grace L.J. Kerkhofs, Bishop of Lièège, on 22 August 1949. Banneux was visited by Pope John-Paul II on 21 May 1985. The specific feature of Banneux is a four-days pilgrimage called triduum.
Sources:
Ivan Sache, 24 November 2007
The municipal flag of Sprimont is vertically divided red-white with the
municipal coat of arms in the red stripe.
Armoiries communales en Belgique. Communes wallonnes, bruxelloises et germanophones describes the flag as Deux laizes transversales rouge et blanche, la laize rouge chargée de l'écu communal and the
arms as D'argent au lion de gueules armé, lampassé et couronné d'or ("Argent a lion gules armed langued and crowned or").
According to Servais, the arms of Sprimont were granted by Royal Decree on 10 October 1908. They show the lion of Limburg since Sprimont once belonged to the Duchy of Limburg. The shield with the lion forms the oldest known municipal seal of Sprimont (XIIIth century). Deleted in the XVI-XVIIth centuries, the crown on the lion reappeared in 1780.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 24 November 2007