tower during the triennial Cat Parade. The Cloth Hall used to be accessible by boat via the Ieperlee waterway, which is now covered. The spacious ground-floor halls where wool and cloth were once sold are now used for exhibitions and tourist information; the second floor, formerly a warehouse, now hosts the In Flanders Fields Museum, dedicated to the history of World War I and also houses a World War I research centre. Via the museum, visitors can access the belfry tower. Against the east face of the edifice stands the elegant Nieuwerck, whose Renaissance style contrasts markedly with the Gothic of the main building. Originally built between 1619 and 1622, and reconstructed after the war, this annex now serves as a town hall. International significance A painting of the Cloth Hall as it appeared in ruins in 1918, by Scottish-born artist James Kerr-Lawson, was one of over 1,000 pieces of art commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund for part of a World War I memorial building that was planned after the war. However, the memorial building was eventually scrapped in favour of a memorial cenotaph at the centre of Confederation Square, across the street from Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The painting of the Cloth Hall, and seven other of the commissioned pieces, were instead hung in the Senate Chamber of the newly re-built Centre Block of parliament in 1921, and remains there today. The design of the Calcutta High Court building, established on July 1, 1862 in the city of Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) in the Bengal Presidency of India during the British Raj, was inspired by the Ypres Cloth Hall, as were Sir George Gilbert Scott's design for the new main building of Glasgow University in 1870 and W H Crossland's design for the Holloway Sanatorium at Virginia Water, Surrey, built 1873–85. See also Calcutta High Court, a 19th-century copy of the Cloth Hall in Kolkata, India Delaware and Hudson Railway Building, a 20th-century copy of the Cloth Hall in Albany, New York, United States List of carillons in Belgium References External links Ypres: The Cloth Hall from Trabel.com Description and picture gallery from Belgiumview In Flanders Fields Museum Rebuilt buildings and structures Buildings and structures completed in 1304 Buildings and structures completed in 1967 Bell towers in Belgium World War I museums in Belgium Museums in West Flanders Buildings and structures in Ypres Medieval architecture