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Ixelles Ponds

Brussels geography stubsIxellesLakes of BrusselsParks in BrusselsUrban public parks
Ixelles Ponds
Ixelles Ponds

The Ixelles Ponds (French: Étangs d'Ixelles) or Elsene Ponds (Dutch: Vijvers van Elsene) are two freshwater ponds in the Brussels municipality of Ixelles. The ponds we can see today are those spared by a 19th-century campaign of drying the wetlands of the Maalbeek valley between La Cambre Abbey and Eugène Flagey Square. The two long and narrow ponds, whose total lengths are approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft), and widths are approximately 50 metres (160 ft), are aligned on a roughly North-South axis and are separated by a narrow strip of land. With the surrounding park, the Ixelles Ponds are the tip of a long strip of almost uninterrupted greenery reaching all the way from the Sonian Forest deep into Brussels' urban tissue. The ponds are an extremely popular recreation area for local residents pertaining to the Belgian upper-crust. However, in the late 1990s, the water was polluted with cyanobacteria. This is still the case with the boating lake in the nearby Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos where signs are posted at regular intervals, warning of a risk of botulism. Fishing is allowed in the ponds on Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Ixelles Ponds (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Ixelles Ponds
Square du Souvenir - Gedachtenissquare,

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Latitude Longitude
N 50.823611111111 ° E 4.3733333333333 °
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Square du Souvenir - Gedachtenissquare

Square du Souvenir - Gedachtenissquare
1050
Belgium
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Ixelles Ponds
Ixelles Ponds
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St Andrew's Church, Brussels
St Andrew's Church, Brussels

St Andrew's Church in Brussels (Ixelles) is a congregation in membership of both the Church of Scotland and the United Protestant Church in Belgium (EPUB/VPKB) (in French Église Protestante Unie de Belgique and in Dutch Verenigde Protestantse Kerk in België.) Services are conducted in English. The congregation's mission statement is "We aspire to follow Jesus in bringing the knowledge of God's love to all". In 1830, a Presbyterian Scots Kirk was founded in Belgium and the Reverend Charles Siveright was the first minister. However after the Belgian revolution, there are no further written records of this church. In 1898, The Reverend Francis Gordon was sent to Belgium and conducted Presbyterian church services in various locations in Brussels. This arrangement with services in different places continued for 27 years. The Reverend George R.S. Reid took over from Gordon as minister in 1899 and 150 people attended a Congregational meeting that year. In 1900, the first Elders were ordained. the Kirk Session set up and a special fund created to raise money for building a church. In 1900 the Brussels congregation was included in the Church of Scotland Presbytery of Edinburgh. As of 2016 it is part of the Church of Scotland's International Presbytery (formerly known as the Presbytery of Europe). The present church buildings (located on the corner of Chaussée de Vleurgat or Vleurgatsesteenweg and Rue Buchholtz, Ixelles, off the Louise Avenue) were built in 1925 as a memorial to the Scottish soldiers who had died in Belgium during World War I and can seat 200. The area surrounding the church is notable for its distinctive early 20th century Art Nouveau houses, notably the nearby home of the architect Victor Horta. The once small congregation has grown considerably in recent years, especially as a result of the UK’s accession to (what was then known as) the Common Market in 1973 and the location of numerous international organisations in Brussels, including the European Union and NATO. The congregation in 2013 was very multinational, with more than 30 different nationalities represented. The largest numbers of people came from the UK and Ghana. As of 2014, the minister (since 2004) is the Reverend Dr Andrew Gardner BSc PhD BD, formerly of Flowerhill Parish Church, Airdrie, Lanarkshire, Scotland.