Nessonvaux, at the gateway to Trooz and the Pays de Herve
Nessonvaux (in Walloon Nessonvå) is a district of the Belgian municipality of Trooz located in the Walloon Region, in the province of Liège, along the Vesdre and the Pays de Herve. It was a municipality in its own right before the 1977 merger of municipalities.
From medieval forges to Damascus gun barrels
In the 14th century, most of Nessonvaux belonged to the advocacy of Fléron. The hamlet grew from around 1500 around a forge: the Cour Monville.
Shortly after 1830, the coiled-ribbon damascened gun barrel appeared (ancestor of the Damascus barrel). A poor Protestant family from Nessonvaux who had emigrated to the United States, the Rigas, took a few barrels with them. They made their fortune by ordering more than 25,000 Damascus barrels a year during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865.
Nearly all the flour mills were converted into gun-barrel factories by the Heuse family, and dozens of small forges sprang up around the forge hammers known as makas. The valley was completely transformed and became a true village.
Sources: acier.damas.free.fr · littlegun.be · Wikipédia — Olne · Wikipédia — Nessonvaux
The Impéria car factory and its rooftop test track
It is above all for theImpéria automobile factory that the town is known in Belgian industrial history. If that era interests you, a RTBF documentary was devoted to it
To ease road testing, which worried local residents, from 1928 Impéria built a test track of about one kilometre, with banked curves, directly on the roofs of its workshops — the factory being wedged between the Vesdre and the road. A boldness comparable to Fiat’s famous Lingotto track in Turin. Two banked curves still remain today, and the façade of the factory, closed in 1958, has been preserved.
In 2008, the Impéria museum « Les Amis des Ancêtres » was inaugurated, bringing together a large number of photographs and documents. Sadly, the floods of July 2021 destroyed all these archives and severely damaged the some thirty vehicles held in the museum. In August 2021, the museum announced that it could not resume its activities.
Sources: Wikipédia — Impéria (automobile)
Discovering Nessonvaux and the Vesdre valley
Staying at the Nîdwazô means setting down your bags in the heart of this Vesdre valley shaped by water and industry. The trails start almost from the doorstep: the GR573 follows the river, the Trooz tourist office marks out several walks, and the village of Olne — one of the most beautiful in Wallonia — can be explored on foot nearby. A little further afield lie the Ninglinspo glen, the thermal baths of Spa or the castle of Franchimont.