Home to William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, Eu has played host to many great personalities over the centuries. Laurent O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who came to plead his people’s cause with Henry II, breathed his last here. Joan of Arc spent a night here…

In the 16th century, Henri de Guise and Catherine de Clèves had the Château d’Eu built. Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, known as La Grande Mademoiselle, settled here. A royal residence under Louis-Philippe, King of the French, it was here that Queen Victoria signed the Entente Cordiale between England and France.

In 1845, invited by the Queen of England, the painter William Turner produced a series of his famous watercolours. Through the buildings and picturesque little streets, a whole historical and cultural heritage is revealed: the collegiate church of Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Laurent, a masterpiece of 13th-century ogival art, the chapel of the Jesuit College and the superb Italian-style theater.

Glassmaking has been present in the Eu Forest and Bresle Valley since the 15th century. In the Middle Ages, glass workshops were the subject of concessions granted by the Counts of Eu. Glassblowers used the great forest to supply their furnaces with firewood, and took advantage of the ferns whose ashes provided the potash needed to melt the sand.

The Musée des Traditions Verrières d’Eu invites visitors to discover the history of glass from its origins to the present day, with a special focus on flaconnage, a local specialty.