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Les Isnes
consult the map of Isnes 
Population
760
Surface area
498 ha
How it got its name
The place name probably comes from the Latin Idonis Villa meaning the villa or farm of a person called Idon.
Inhabitants
Isnois (e)
Whereabouts
The locality extends along the route leading from Eghezée to the Spy approach road to the Mons-Liège motorway. The Brussels – Namur trunk road runs north and the Namur-Nivelles highway runs south.
Isnes is located in an area of uplands where the altitude shows significant variations, ranging from 159.50 m to the north of the village to 192.50 m on its eastern tip.
Isnes forms part of the Meuse basin via a brook flowing into the Bossière in the Ripjoux, a tributary of the River Orneau.
The village dwellings are generally arranged along one street.
Accessible solely by road via the N4 (Brussels -Namur) and N93 (Namur-Nivelles) highways and the Spy exit road on the E42 (Mons-Liège).
The nearest station, Bovesse station on the 161 line from Brussels to Namur is located four kilometres or so from Isnes' eastern tip.
History
A short history of Isnes.
The locality is made up of two parts that used to be quite separate : Isnes-les-Dames in the south-west and Isnes-Sauvage in the north-east. The origins of the first name can be traced back to the past when the Carmelite sisters owned properties in this area. The second name refers to the later clearance of this section of the village.
During the middle ages, Isnes-les-Dames and Isnes-Sauvage were jurisdictional lordships directly dependent upon the earl of Namur thus forming part of his estate. The dynast owned Golzinnes fortress barely one kilometre to the west of these lordships. The fortress dominated the Ripjoux valley and controlled a gap through which passed the only road leading from Namur to Gembloux during the middle ages in the midst of a thickly wooded region.
The fortress also stood at the western boundary of the earldom of Namur's property.
A new tax called called "aides" was introduced during the Burgundian period. A 1469 census reported five households in Isnes-les-Dames and two in Isnes-Sauvages, to make a total of seven homes where the head of the family's income was high enough to pay this tax.
In common with all localities in the Gembloux region, Isnes was afflicted during the last quarter of the 17th century by the wars being waged in this area by Louis XIV. A section of the French army passed through Isnes in 1692, during the siege of Namur.
When the former Austrian Netherlands were annexed to France, Isnes lost its status as a jurisdictional lordship and became a municipality of the canton of Gembloux in the department of Sambre-et-Meuse.
The Saussin district, which hitherto formed part of Spy, was attached to Isnes in 1812.
The names Isnes-les-Dames and d’Isnes-Sauvage were officially abolished in1880.
Isnes was established as an independent parish in 1859. Under the Ancien Regime, Isnes-les-Dames was dependent up the parish of Bossière whose church was over two kilometres away.
Isnes-les-Dames was dependent on the parish of Temploux.
Isnes lost its status as an independent municipality on 1 January 1977 and joined the new municipality of Gembloux-sur-Orneau, called Gembloux on 1 January 1980.
A must-see
Several farms are scattered around the territory of Isnes: the Dames Blanches (18th century.), Tour (18th century with the addition of a central building and a high brick tower in the 19th century), Boverie (most of whose buildings date back to the 19th century, while retaining 18th century components.), Etang (19th and 20th centuries with stables dating back to the 18th century) and Saussin (second quarter of the 18th century) farms.
