In the port city of Boulogne there is one small area, sadly missed by many visitors, that has iconic status within the history of the town. As we have seen in the preceding feature, Boulogne is first and foremost a community of the sea. The town’s most celebrated concentration of seafarers was in and around the Beurière district. It was a place to hear snippets of the local Patois boulonnais and to catch the smell of kippers being smoked. Almost every house in the Beurière had its own corèse — a special chimney that allowed each family to prepare kippers or bloaters.

Charles Dickens remarked on how the steep, narrow alleys of the Beurière were “cobweb hung with great brown nets”.