IJzerenleen

Many Mechelaars regard the IJzerenleen as Mechelen's Champs Elysées. Fortunately there are fewer cars. The street boasts imposing façades, lovely shops and one of the oldest town halls in Flanders. The IJzerenleen was once a brook linking the Dyle with the Koolvliet; it was also the site of the fish market. The name IJzerenleen derives from the iron railings erected alongside the brook, which are still there today, though the brook was covered over back in the sixteenth century. The fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth-century façades are not original. Having suffered damage in the First World War, they were rebuilt following an architectural competition.