At Ypres and Bruges the belfries form part of the great halls of the city. Those at Lierre, Nieuport, Alost, Furnes, and other cities, have been all more or less destroyed by alterations, and are more interesting to the antiquary than to the architect; moreover, like the cities themselves, they never could have been of the first class, or remarkable for any extraordinary magnificence. The great municipal halls, which are found in all the principal cities of Belgium, are of three classes:—1. Town-halls—the municipal senate-houses and courts of justice. 2. Trade-halls or market-houses, the principal of which were cloth-halls, cloth having been the great staple manufacture of Belgium during the Middle Ages. And lastly Guildhalls, or the separate places of assembly of the different guilds or associated trades of the cities. [Illustration: 683. Cloth-hall at Ypres.] As far as existing examples go, it would appear that the trade halls were the first erected. The cloth-hall at Ypres is by far the most magnificent and beautiful of these, as also the earliest. The foundation-stone was laid in 1200 by Baldwin of Constantinople, but it was not finished till 104 years afterwards. The façade is 440 ft. in length, and of the simplest possible design, being perfectly straight and unbroken from end to end. The windows of each storey, all of one design, are repeated, not only along the whole front, but at each end. Its height is varied by the noble belfry which rises from its centre, and by a bold and beautiful pinnacle at each end. The whole is of the pure architecture of the 13th century, and is one of the most majestic edifices of its class to be seen anywhere. It might perhaps have been improved by the greater degree of expression and the bolder shadows which lines brought down to the ground would have given to it, but as it is, it is extremely pleasing from its simplicity and the perfect adaptation of its exterior to its internal arrangements. These consist of one vast hall on the ground-floor, supported by several ranges of columns, with long galleries and great halls above it for the use of the trade to which it was appropriated.