The Sablon neighborhood anchors the southern end of the Upper Town and at its heart is place du Petit Sablon , a small rectangular area which was laid out as a public garden in 1890 after previous use as a horse market. The wrought-iron fence surrounding the garden is decorated with 48 statuettes representing the medieval guilds and inside, near the top of the slope, are ten more - slightly larger - statues honouring some of the country's leading sixteenth-century figures. The ten are hardly household names in Belgium never mind anywhere else, but one or two may ring a few bells: Mercator, the geographer and cartographer responsible for Mercator's projection of the earth's surface; William the Silent, the founder of the Netherlands; and the painter Bernard van Orley. Here also, on top of the fountain, are the figures of the counts Egmont and Hoorn , clasping each other in brotherly fashion, as befits two men who were beheaded together on the Grand-Place for their opposition to the Habsburgs in 1568.

Count Egmont is further remembered by the Palais d'Egmont (no entry) at the back of the square. This elegant structure was originally built in 1534 for Françoise of Luxembourg, mother of the executed count. It was remodelled on several subsequent occasions and in 1972 it was here that Britain signed the treaty admitting it to the EEC.

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