Bluebells in the Hallerbos.

Bluebells in the Hallerbos.

At the beginning of our era the Hallerbos was still a part of the vast Coal Forest, currently it is yet 542 ha!

The Coal Forest (also the charcoal burner forest, called in Latin chronicles Silva Aria Carbon, is the name of the primeval forest that stretched into Gaul from Brabant to Picardy and once covered the middle part of Belgium.

The name "Coal Forest" was given by Julius Caesar in his war diary De Bello Gallico, when he went through the almost impenetrable forest with his army. The name indicated the general use of the extraction of charcoal for smelting of ferrous sandstone (limonite) that is occurs in different places in that region. Exactly that use meant that large parts were deforested.