Buckingham Town Council twins with two very different towns; Mouvaux, France and Neukirchen Vluyn, Germany. We became twinned with Mouvaux, France on 13th April 2002 and Neukirchen Vluyn, Germany on 15th February 2020. We also have had a friendship agreement with the town since July 2012.
Mouvaux, France
Mouvaux is in Northern France, about two hours from Calais, in a region called Flanders, very near the Belgian border. Signs of this connection are in the architecture, in the use of Dutch as a language and in the food enjoyed by its inhabitants. Two features of the town also merit mention. The Grand Boulevard includes a tramway which goes through the centre of the town. This was originally conceived by Alfred Mongy in 1885 to link Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing. It was completed in 1909 and is very efficient. The other feature of the town is the marvellous Hautmont park containing over 16 acres of viustas and lakes which was given to the town by a local industrialist.
Neukirchen Vluyn, Germany
The town is situated in the far West of Germany near Duisburg and the River Rhine and is about 25 minutes from the Dutch border. It’s made up of two separate parts, Neukirchen and Vluyn, plus two other villages, totalling a population of about 29,000. On one side are fields and forests, on the other the buzzing industrial areas of the Ruhr and Rhine so many workers choose to come and live there and to commute. The towns came together a result of the coal mine being situated between them in the 19th century. This closed several years ago and the original slag heap is a local attraction giving pleasant views from the top!
