Holy Corner (Begijnhof Ghent)

In the 13th century, a number of devout, unmarried and lay women, who had been helping the Cistercian sisters with their medical work, were given their own premises by Countess Joanna of Constantinople, daughter to Baldwin IX of Flanders, who also helped with the construction of the Hospital in Lille named after her (L'hospice de la Comtesse Jeanne, built in 1236).

During the French Revolution, the city of Ghent acquired the property rights to the beguinage (on the legal provision of having to subsidize and maintain it).

Thanks to financial sponsoring by the Duke of Arenberg (also known as the Prinz von Recklinghausen) in two years' time (1872–1874) a new beguinage was built at the then still independent village of Sint-Amandsberg.

Thanks to this, both private enterprise and the town of Ghent started to invest more into local housing, and from 1984 on the neighbourhood even began to feel the effects of gentrification.

However, in the summer of 2008, the Anglican church moved to a chapel in the neighbouring Theresianenstraat, just outside the Holy Corner, to return in January 2016.