To mark the 40th anniversary of the sistering of Le Quesnoy and the Belgium’s Morlanwelz, a delegation from the Belgian municipality, accompanied by its bourgmestre (the Belgian equivalent of a mayor), visited Le Quesnoy to celebrate four decades of exchanges and friendship between the two towns.
This friendship has its roots in folklore. It began with the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard of Morlanwelz, whose band has taken part in Le Quesnoy’s Bimberlot parade since 1976, an unmissable event in the town’s biggest annual festival.
A testament to these enduring ties, the Belgian Peace Garden was inaugurated in Le Quesnoy in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. It echoes the New Zealand Peace Garden, with both spaces reflecting the town’s commitment to preserving a shared history shaped by friendship.
To mark this 40th anniversary, the Le Quesnoy Town Hall approached Te Arawhata to organise a guided tour of the museum. It was an opportunity to introduce our Belgian friends to the story of the town’s liberation by New Zealand soldiers in 1918. This pivotal event laid the foundations for the bonds between Le Quesnoy and New Zealand, which ultimately led to the town’s sistering with Cambridge.
The visit concluded with a symbolic moment: Te Arawhata hosted the official signing ceremony commemorating 40 years of the sister city relationship between Le Quesnoy and Morlanwelz. The ceremony took place on the museum’s first-floor landing, in front of beautiful inscriptions in French, English and te reo Māori.
Hosting this event at Te Arawhata, a place where cultures meet and a symbol of friendship and shared remembrance, was a natural choice for the town and a source of pride for our team. This deeply moving occasion reminded us that history has the power to bring people together, whether they are neighbours or separated by thousands of kilometres, and to keep the values of fellowship and peace alive across generations.