The forest where the community was established was in the form of a belt extending westwards from the Forest of The Ardennes, to the north of the town of St. Quentin and towards the town of Bapaume. It is now largely felled. Traffic passed through the forest, in many cases along the remaining lines of Roman roads. The routes were important commercially and diplomatically for traffic between Paris and Flanders, also between England and Burgundy. It will have been mainly by this route that the English and Western Flemings went to Rome on pilgrimages and diplomatic journeys.