Zoutleeuw - St Leonard's Church Sint-Leonarduskerk

St Leonard's Church in Zoutleeuw owes its national importance to the fact that it was one of the very few churches in Belgium which was spared both by the iconoclasts of the religious struggles in the 16th C. and by the French revolutionary troops. For this reason it enables the visitor to realize how richly the churches of the Spanish Netherlands must have been furnished before the mid-16th C.

The building began around 1230 with the west facade which is flanked by two asymmetrical towers; shortly afterwards the choir and the north transept followed, and in the 14th C. the south transept and the nave. The sacristy was added in the 15th C. to plans by Mattheus de Layens; the building was completed with the side chapels and the belfry above the crossing (today a reconstruction of 1926).

The tower is a UNESCO site.