Belgium · Flanders · Gent
Baarle, Gent — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Baarle is a village parish of Drongen in Gent, where the Sint-Martinuskerk stands on Baarledorpstraat and the Baarleveer crosses the Leie.
About Baarle
Where to stay in Baarle
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Baarle keeps the lodging that the rest of Drongen does not. The E40 exit and the industrial estate beside it put beds at the northern edge of the parish, well clear of the village core on Baarledorpstraat, where the church, its rectory, and eighteenth-century houses hold the street instead. The Leie runs just south.
Pick Baarle if you want the Baarleveer and the Keuzemeersen rather than a room in the Gent centre.
About Baarle
What are the main landmarks in Baarle?
The Sint-Martinuskerk stands at Baarledorpstraat 3, a neo-Gothic hall church of three aisles built on the foundations of a single-nave Romanesque predecessor and consecrated again in 1857. A church at Baarle is recorded as early as 1025. Jean-Baptiste Bethune designed its side altars in 1873.
Baarle Churchyard holds one Commonwealth war grave, that of Sergeant Cecil Maurice Alen-Mahon, a Sopwith Camel pilot killed on 23 October 1918. The rectory next door went up in 1874 for Ernest Solvijns. Kasteel Roman keeps a park on Baarleveldestraat.
What is the history of Baarle?
Baarle is recorded as Barloria in 820-822, when the land belonged to the Sint-Pietersabdij in Gent and the village lay on both banks of the Leie. French rule at the end of the eighteenth century made it a municipality of its own, and an imperial decree of 22 January 1805 abolished it again. The left bank, 37 bunder with the village core, went to Drongen.
The right bank, 24 bunder with the hamlet of Klein-Frankrijk, went to Sint-Martens-Latem. Only the parish stayed independent. A vicinal tramway reached Baarle from Drongen in 1909 and ran until 1958.
Where is Baarle?
Baarle lies southwest of Drongen centre on the left bank of the Leie, opposite Sint-Martens-Latem, with the Keuzemeersen spread along its own bank.
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Updated September 2026