Malines

Malines (Mechlin), on the navigable Dyle, a decayed city of Belgium, 14 miles S.E. of Antwerp. It has fine buildings and squares and broad grass-grown streets. The large church of St. Rumbold has a Crucifixion by Vandyk, and in the churches of Our Lady and St. John are works by Rubens. The 15th-century town-hall, the cloth ball (now a guard-room), and the Archbishop's palace are buildings of note, and there is a monument of Margaret of Austria. The Archbishop of Malines is Primate of Belgium, and the town has some convents. The lace trade, for which the town used to be famous, has now almost passed away from it, and of the few industries the chief are the manufacture of linen, woollens, beer, and needles.

Malines is a railway junction.