Béguinage of Lier is today a walled village in the community and consists of 162 buildings and St. Margaret's Church. One of the four entrances to the beguinage is a renaissance gate surmounted by a statue of the Holy Begga. Lier Béguinage was founded in the 1258, when three sisters decided found a place for spiritual women. About 200 years later, the beguinage was grown and had a church, hospital and three monasteries. Beguinage was damaged by fire in 1485, 1526 and 1542. Baroque gate was built around 1690. St. Margaret Church Baroque façade is from the 1600s.
During the French Revolution Lier Beguinage was confiscated and sold. In the 1990s, large parts of houses were restored. Today Lier Béguinage is one of Flemish Béguinages described as UNESCO World Heritage Site.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).