Office de Tourisme Cassel Horizons

Located in greenery on the southern side of Mount Cassel, the village was born along the Roman roads which go down from the antique Gallo-Roman city.

There are always been trees and grass here and even much more in the past. The old Germanic word “hlaeri”, which changed into “laere”, ends the name of this village. It means wooded and marsh lands used as pastures. This word also appears in the name Saint-Martin-au-laere, a village located near Saint-Omer. However, we cannot assure you that “oxe” means ox.

The church of Gothic inspiration has a very plain plan even if it was built in 1718: a central nave with narrow lean-to aisles. The shrine whose saint-patron is Saint Martin, a great evangelist of Gaul in the 4^th century, owes a lot to Father Alexandre Vandewalle (1681-1761), former Jesuit, very cultivated in French and Flemish, who was priest in this modest parish. We wonder if it is him or another priest, music lover as well, who decorated the porch with the effigies of King David and Sainte Cecile, patrons of musicians. Inside the church, you could see music patterns on the big sculpted panels of Louis XVI’s style inspiration, which surround the chancel.

The oak wood-paneled vault is decorated with heads of cherubs set off with gold. The maître d’hôtel has a tabernacle with three fulcrums: three swivels decorated with mirrors which turn around an axis and enable the presentation of the crucifix, the exhibition of the monstrance or the preservation of the Host.

In the graveyard, very close of the church, there is the gravestone of Pierre-François Lengle de Schoebecque, the procurator of the intendant in charge of coastal Flanders, under the reign of Louis XVI. Later, he was the first mayor of Cassel.

On the other side of the church, you could still see the coat of arms of the lords of Oxelaere on a beautiful country house. However, the castle of the Lengle Schoebecque was demolished after the last war. At this place, today, there is a special center.

The town council of Oxelaere is one of the smallest of the administrative department (Nord).

The lanes dug into sand which go up on the southern side of Mount Cassel from the village, are picturesque.