Vertbois

Le Vertbois, the ox-blood red building

Along the Liège audio-guided tour, you discover the Vertbois, one of the city's most recognisable buildings thanks to its very particular colour, the famous ox-blood red. It is impossible to miss, yet behind this colourful façade lies a history reaching back to the fifteenth century.

From an inn to a hospice

Originally, the Vertbois was neither a hospice nor an official building, but a well-known inn, marked by a juniper branch above the door, as was the custom. In the early eighteenth century, Baron Jean-Ernest de Surlet turned the inn into a hospice for the poor, before having a chapel built, consecrated in 1712. The following centuries were turbulent: a military bakery during the Revolution, an orphanage in the nineteenth century, then bombings during the Second World War.

What there is to see

An entire wing was destroyed by the bombing, then rebuilt in the 1950s. Now restored, the Vertbois houses a Walloon public institution and remains a landmark in the Liège landscape. Its façade in its very recognisable red and its inner courtyard deserve a close look, as does the chapel that recalls its former charitable role.

Practical information

The Vertbois is on Rue du Vertbois, between Place Saint-Jacques and Place des Carmes, in central Liège. The façade and surroundings can be seen freely at all hours; the interior, occupied by a public institution, follows its own access conditions.

Why is the Vertbois red?

Its façade bears the famous ox-blood red, a traditional shade that makes the building instantly recognisable in the Liège landscape.

What was the function of the Vertbois?

First an inn, it became in the eighteenth century a hospice for the poor, with a chapel consecrated in 1712, before serving many other uses. It now houses a Walloon public institution.