Obelisk Memorial

The five-metre high obelisk, made of porphyry, was designed by the architect Alexis Van Mechelen and the bronzecaster Jan Kerckx. The monument symbolises the 100th anniversary of the Napoleonic Decree of 18 July 1803, which ordered the construction of the “Petit et Grand Bassin”. On the occasion of the unveiling in 1906, the first docks with locks were also renamed. They were no longer called Small and Large Dock but Bonaparte Dock and Willem Dock, after their founder and King Willem I, who donated the docks to the town council after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815.