Huy was mentioned for the first time, as Hoium, in a testament dated 636. A village was probably built earlier near a Roman castrum (fortified camp) set up on the right bank of the Meuse. It is also said that saint Materne dedicated a shrine to the Blessed Virgin there in the IInd century.

The castle was explicitely mentioned for the first time in 890 in a bill of sale. Grapevine was grown on the slopes of the spur. Bronze foundry workers, bone and horn cutters and potters had workshops in the borough of Batta.

During the First World War, the fortress of Huy was used by the Germans as a disciplinary camp for their own troops and Russian prisonners. During the Second World War, it was used as a jail for more than 6,000 French and Belgian political opponents.
The municipality purchased the fort in 1973 for one symbolic franc. On 28 June 1992, the Museum of Resistance and Concentration Camps was inaugurated, following a convention with the municipality of Huy.