Narrow cobbled lanes of red brick houses with stepped gables sit behind the Gravensteen castle, with the Leie along the south side.
What Patershol looks like
Patershol is a close knit web of lanes behind the castle, with the Leie running along the south side. The lanes are cobbled throughout. They run in a closed medieval pattern rather than a grid.
Most of the houses are two to three storeys in red brick, some rendered and whitewashed over it, with stepped or bell shaped gables along the roofline. Window and door frames are painted in places, red on the and blue on Hertogstraat. One beluik survives off the , a small brick courtyard reached through an arched passage in the street wall.
has the traffic and most of the shopfronts, cars parked along one side and a sushi restaurant sign beside an eetcafe sign further down. Kraanlei has restaurant tables set out on the cobbles in front of the carved sandstone front of the Seven Works of Mercy house. The lanes behind Oudburg are narrower and quieter, Corduwaniersstraat whitewashed with stepped gables at its far end and Haringsteeg a yellow brick passage barely a car's width across.
The on Vrouwebroersstraat is a brick building under a long tiled roof, reached off the through a red brick arch with a painted coat of arms above it. It now holds the Kunsthal Gent gallery.
The Huis van Alijn on Kraanlei is a whitewashed almshouse with red doors and stepped dormers, now a folk life museum. Across the Leie, the stepped gable fronts of the Groot Vleeshuis and Het Waterhuis aan de Bierkant face the water.
Shot in Patershol
Tim Mielants shot part of Wil in the Patershol over one night in June 2022. The city's permit names the district rather than one street, so the lanes stand in for occupied Antwerp without any single corner being singled out.
Wil, 2023
The Patershol lanes
Played Antwerp, Belgium, 1942, under German occupation
Menuetto film applied on 14 April 2022. The city gave permission for filming in the Patershol from six in the evening on 17 June until three the next morning. The technical zone was the Kaatsspelplein, the Geldmunt and the Lange Steenstraat, which is where the unit based rather than where it filmed. The permission covers the district and does not say which lanes were in frame. Wil is set in Antwerp in 1942 under German occupation. Tim Mielants directed it from Jeroen Olyslaegers' novel. It opened in Belgium on 27 September 2023.
What Patershol can double for
Antwerp, Belgium
Wil used the Patershol as occupied Antwerp, and the match works because both places keep the same narrow cobbled lanes with brick and rendered houses under stepped gables. Antwerp's own old town lost more of that fabric than Ghent's did, between the Boerentoren rising over the historic center in 1932 and the rebuilding that followed the city's own wartime bomb damage. The city's June 2022 permit for the shoot covered the whole Patershol district without naming which lanes went in front of the camera. Cars park along Hertogstraat and Oudburg in the photographs on this page, and Kraanlei and Oudburg both carry restaurant tables and hung shop signs that would need to come out of a 1940s frame. Try searching narrow cobbled lanes stepped gables now.
Carmersstraat in Bruges, Belgium
Carmersstraat runs through Bruges' quiet Sint-Anna quarter, red brick with stepped gables on a street away from the Markt and the canals most visitors photograph. It takes its name from a Carmelite monastery that once stood there, the same way Patershol's own name comes from the Caermersklooster. Kraanlei and Oudburg both carry visible restaurant signage and outdoor tables in the photographs on this page, and any of that would need to come out of a shot standing in for Carmersstraat's quieter residential frontage. Try searching red brick stepped gables now.
Füchtingshof in Lübeck, Germany
Füchtingshof on Glockengießerstraße is one of Lübeck's courtyard almshouses, reached through a narrow passage off the street into a hidden row of small brick housing behind it. Lübeck keeps around a hundred such passages and courtyards across its old town, far more than Ghent's one surviving beluik off the Plotersgracht. Lübeck's own old town is built mostly in exposed dark brick rather than the whitewash and render that covers some of Patershol's streets, so the match works best on plain brick frames rather than a whitewashed run. Try searching narrow passage brick courtyard now.
