The history of Wimereux

Wimereux owes its existence to Napoleon I, who had a port built here for his army as part of his plan to invade England, and its name to the river at whose mouth the town stands. Everything else — the villas, the sea wall, the beach huts — came a century later, with the railway and the fashion for sea bathing.

The Wimereux timeline

1. −500 000

   The first inhabitants

   The oldest human traces found in Wimereux — hand axes and flints — date back 500,000 to 700,000 years. People lived here by fishing, hunting and gathering, under a warm climate.

2. −20 000

   The Würm glaciation

   The area is gripped by the ice age, before the climate gradually warms again. The Morini, a Celtic people, then settle here and trade with the British Isles.

3. Antiquité

   Roman Boulonnais

   After the Gallic Wars, the region is Roman for nearly three centuries and attached to Gallia Belgica. Boulogne is ravaged by invasions in the 3rd century, then rebuilt in the 4th.

4. 1214

   Bouvines, then the Hundred Years' War

   Philip II Augustus takes back northern France at Bouvines. A long peace follows, until the Hundred Years' War: Calais becomes English until 1559.

5. 1347

   The Black Death

   The Boulonnais is one of the hardest-hit regions: over 30% of households are affected between 1347 and 1350. A fort is built at the mouth of the Wimereux; its ruins remain visible until 1940.

6. 1785

   History's first air accident

   It happens in Wimereux: aeronauts Pierre-Ange Romain and Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier die there attempting to cross the Channel by balloon.

7. Vers 1800

   Napoleon creates the town

   Napoleon I orders the building of a port for his army and a town along the river, as part of his plan to invade England. It is the founding act of Wimereux.

8. 1840

   Louis-Napoleon's failed landing

   The future Napoleon III lands at Wimereux to attempt a coup and rally the Boulogne sur Mer garrison. The attempt fails.

9. XIXe siècle

   The railway, then the villas

   The arrival of the railway transforms the landscape and the economy, and requires bridges to be built over the Wimereux. The town becomes the summer home of families from Paris and Lille, who build the Belle Époque villas still open to visit today.

10. 1899

    Wimereux becomes a commune

    Until then part of Wimille, Wimereux breaks away and takes the name of the river at whose mouth it was built.

11. 1899-1903

    Marconi and the radio

    An aerial set up at Wimereux enables a radio link with South Foreland, in England: 48 kilometres, a record for the time. Marconi carries out his tuning experiments there, the first system for protecting radio communications.

12. 1945

    The resort destroyed, then rebuilt

    The seaside resort is partly destroyed at the end of the war. Some of the Belle Époque villas and buildings survive and are maintained today.

13. 2013

    Classified tourist resort

    The decree of 1 August 2013 classifies Wimereux as a tourist resort. By then, the town has become both a residential suburb of Boulogne and a holiday destination for Belgians, Britons and Parisians.

What's left of it today

The Belle Époque villas are the most visible trace of this history: built for 19th-century industrialists and shipowners, they can be visited today on a self-guided walk, each with its own QR code telling its story. The Column of the Grande Armée, above the town, recalls the Napoleonic plan that started it all.

• Visit Boulogne sur MerThe town Wimereux was born from
• Visit the Opal CoastThe fourteen towns along the coast