The Palace of Charles of Lorraine is a neoclassical palace in Brussels, Belgium. It served as the residence of Charles Alexander of Lorraine, the Governor-General of what was then Austrian Netherlands from 1744 to 1780. The palace currently houses a museum.

Located on what is now the Museum Square, the palace is located near the Coudenberg hill, not far from nearby institutions such as the Place Royale/Koningsplein (the Belgian Royal Palace), as well as the Royal Library, the national library of Belgium.

History
Charles of Lorraine was the governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1744 to 1780. He was an avid art and science enthusiast and collector. His palace, the construction of which started in 1757, later housed the Royal Library’s reading rooms.

An impressive staircase, adorned with a statue of Hercules sculpted by Laurent Delvaux, leads up to the first-floor rotunda. The rotunda’s paving includes a central rosette made up of 28 types of Belgian marble, a sample of the Prince’s collection of 5,000 minerals. This wonderful floor art leads to five rooms decorated with stuccos and silk, where the governor would entertain his guests and take care of state affairs.

Since 2001, the palace has been listed as a protected monument.

https://www.kbr.be/en/venue/palace-of-charles-of-lorraine/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Charles_of_Lorraine

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The Royal Palace of Brussels is the official palace of the King and Queen of the Belgians in the centre of the nation's capital Brussels. However it is not used as a royal residence, as the king and his family live in the Royal Palace of Laeken on the outskirts of Brussels. The website of the Belgian Monarchy describes the function of the palace as follows:

The Palace is where His Majesty the King exercises his prerogatives as Head of State, grants audiences and deals with affairs of state. Apart from the offices of the King and the Queen, the Royal Palace houses the services of the Grand Marshal of the Court, the King's Head of Cabinet, the Head of the King's Military Household and the Intendant of the King's Civil List. The Palace also includes the State Rooms where large receptions are held, as well as the apartments provided for foreign Heads of State during official visits.

The palace is situated in front of Brussels Park. A long square called the Paleizenplein/Place des Palais separates the palace from the park. The middle axis of the park marks both the middle peristyle of the palace and the middle of the facing building on the other side of the park, which is the Palace of the Nation (the Belgian Federal Parliament building). The two facing buildings are said to symbolize Belgium's system of government: a constitutional monarchy.

As often mentioned, it has a facade 50% longer than that of Buckingham Palace but its floor area of 33,027 m2 is less than half of Buckingham Palace's floor area (77,000 m2).

History

The facade existing today was only built after 1900 on the initiative of King Leopold II. The first nucleus of the present-day building dates from the end of the 18th century. However, the grounds on which the palace stands were once part of the Coudenberg Palace a very old palatial complex that dated back to the Middle Ages.

The first building on the Coudenberg hill was constructed between the second half of the 11th and first half of the 12th century. At that time it probably looked like a fortified castle forming a part of the fortifications of the city of Brussels. It was the home of the Dukes of Brabant who also resided in the nearby city of Leuven and in the Castle of Tervuren. In the following centuries it was rebuilt, extended and improved in line with the increased prestige of the Dukes of Brabant and their successors; the Dukes of Burgundy, the Emperor Charles V, the Archduke Albert of Austria and Infanta Isabel of Spain and successive Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands.

The Aula Magna, or Throne Room, was built for Philip the Good in the 15th century. It was in this room that the Emperor Charles V abdicated in 1555 in favour of his son Philip II of Spain. This prestigious complex was unfortunately destroyed by a fire on February 3, 1731. The ruins only disappeared when the district was redeveloped after 1775. At that time the urban axes of the present-day Brussels Park were laid out. The Place Royale was built on top of the ruined palace. Excavations of the site by different archeological organisations have unearthed various remains of different parts of the Palace as well as the surrounding town. The monumental vaults remaining under the square and its surrounding buildings can be visited.

The New Palace
Charles Alexander of Lorraine, at that time Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands had a new palace, the Palace of Charles of Lorraine, built on the nearby site of the former palace of the Nassau family (Hof van Nassau). The Palace of Charles of Lorraine is now part of the Royal Library of Belgium. The old palace garden was redesigned as a public park. On the north side a new building for the Council of Brabant (Raad van Brabant / Conseil de Brabant) was built by the French architect Gilles Barnabé Guimard, which today houses the Belgian Federal Parliament and is known as the 'Palace of the Nation'. On the other side of the park (the building plot of the present-day palace) the middle axis of the park continued as a street between two newly built mansions. One served as the residence of the Abbot of the nearby Coudenberg Abbey, while the other was inhabited by important government members.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Brussels became (together with The Hague) the joint capital of the new established United Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was under the rule of William I of the Netherlands that the street was covered and the two mansions were joined with a gallery. The newly created 'palace' received a new neo-classic facade designed by Tilman-François Suys with a peristyle in the middle, and a balcony with a wrought iron parapet surrounding the entire first floor.

The street running alongside the new palace was widened and thus the Place des Palais or Paleizenplein was created. The new square was called 'Square of the Palaces' in plural, because another palace was built on the left side of the Royal Palace. This new building (1823) was designed as the residence of the Crown Prince called the Prince of Orange (the later King William II of the Netherlands). Today it houses the Royal Academies of Sciences and Arts of Belgium and is consequently called Academiënpaleis / Palais des Academies. The rooms and 'Salons' of the old mansions were incorporated in the new Royal Palace and were only partly refurnished. Some of them survived al the 19th and 20th century renovations and are still partly intact today. A major addition to the interior decoration from the time of William I is the so-called 'Empire room' which was designed as a ballroom. It has a very refined cream and gold decoration designed and executed by the famous French sculptor François Rude.

Extensions by Leopold II

After the Belgian revolution the palace was offered to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg when he ascended the throne as the first King of the Belgians. Just like his predecessor William II he used the palace mainly for official receptions and other representational purposes and lived in the Royal Palace of Laeken. During his reign (until 1865) little was changed to the palace. It was his son and successor Leopold II who judged the building to be too modest for a king of his stature, and who kept on enlarging and embellishing the palace until his death in 1909. During his reign the palace nearly doubled in surface. After the designs of his architect Alphonse Balat, imposing rooms like the 'Grand Staircase', 'Throne Room' and the 'Grande Gallerie' were added. Balat also planned a new façade but died before the plans could be executed.

It was only after 1904 that the new façade was executed after new plans by Henri Maquet. The pediment sculpture shows an allegorical figure of Belgium flanked by groups representing Industry and Agriculture, by Belgian sculptor Thomas Vinçotte. The new design included a formal front garden separating the building from the 'Place des Palais'.

Royal Palace of Brussels

The Egmont Palace (French: Palais d'Egmont, Dutch: Egmontpaleis) is a neoclassical palace in Brussels, Belgium. It is situated in the Sablon/Zavel district, between Rue aux Laines/Wolstraat and the Petit Sablon Square. Today, it houses the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

History

The original mansion was built between 1548 and 1560 by Françoise of Luxembourg and her son, Lamoral, Count of Egmont, first in a Flemish Gothic, and later Renaissance style. The fabric was dramatically transformed in the 18th century, when the property passed onto the Arenberg family, and the building was clothed in a neoclassical style. The plans for this stage are attributed to the early advocate of neoclassicism, Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni. After a fire demolished the oldest part of the building in 1891, it was reconstructed in a uniform neoclassical style.

The venue hosted the fencing events for the 1920 Summer Olympics in the garden.[1] After World War I, the German Arenberg family was forced to sell the building to the City of Brussels. In 1964, it was sold to the Belgian state. In 1977, the Egmont pact on the Belgian state reform was signed in the Egmont Palace during the second administration of then Prime Minister of Belgium Leo Tindemans.

Since 1992, the palace has been listed as a protected monument.[2] Nowadays, it is used for receptions and meetings by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and hosts many events organised by the Royal Institute for International Relations.

Egmont Palace

Le Karreveld est le nom attribué à un ancien domaine de trois hectares et à une ferme-château à Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, une commune du nord-ouest de Bruxelles. Karreveld détermine également le nom d’un quartier de cette commune. Cet espace est également un parc public communal.

Un domaine vénérable

Le nom de Karreveld, en néerlandais Karel Veld ou «champ de Charles», trouverait son origine dans le passage de l'empereur Charles Quint à cet endroit. Ce récit folklorique est démenti par la datation d'actes officiels qui mentionnent le nom de « Karreveld » bien avant la naissance de Charles Quint.

Le nom Karreveld tire plus vraisemblablement son origine de « Karreelvelt » (champ de terre à briques), eu égard au fait que plusieurs briqueteries étaient encore en activité aux environs du domaine au début du xxe siècle.

Le nom de Carnevelt apparaît déjà dans un document, daté de 1253, à la suite de l'acte de donation fait par le Duc de Brabant, Jean Ier le Victorieux à son épouse Marguerite, fille de Saint Louis, Roi de France. La veuve de Jérôme Van Ghindertaelen vend le bien à un seigneur espagnol Don Garcia Osario y Borgia, en 1656. La famille de Villegas acquiert le bien, en 1780, pour le vendre à la commune en 1930.

Sur le tracé des boulevards de Grande Ceinture

Avant la Première Guerre mondiale déjà, le domaine est menacé de disparition. Abandonné par ses propriétaires, il est en outre sur le tracé des boulevards de Grande ceinture dont le prolongement au-delà du plateau de Koekelberg s’impose. Mais les amoureux du patrimoine et des espaces verts veillent au grain. Dans l’intervalle, le parc sert parfois de base aérienne pour les montgolfières, un vélodrome en bois y est ouvert lors de la fermeture de celui du bois de la Cambre et le château est reconverti en laiterie.

Une fois le tracé du boulevard officialisé, la commune de Molenbeek-Saint-Jean se préoccupe de son urbanisation. Pour avoir les coudées plus franches, elle rachète le domaine en 1930 à la famille du comte de Villegas pour la somme de 400 000 €. Il couvrait à l’époque 16 hectares qu’il s’agissait, pour partie, d’intégrer dans le boulevard de ceinture et les voiries adjacentes à lotir et de transformer le reste en parc autour au château restauré. Le nouveau bourgmestre Edmond Machtens (1902-1978) charge alors l’architecte communal Pierre De Bruyne de consolider le bâtiment qui menace ruine.

Un attrait pour le développement du quartier

La guerre et les priorités de la reconstruction retardent ensuite l’entreprise jusqu’au début des années 1950. À ce moment, la commune semble hésiter entre son ardent désir d’attirer la bourgeoisie dans le nouveau quartier et la conservation du patrimoine. Le classement du château et du site, effectif en 1955 seulement, met un terme à ses tergiversations. Enfin convaincue de l’atout que le Karreveld représente pour l’attrait du quartier, elle débloque les budgets nécessaires à sa restauration. Pour justifier la dépense auprès de ses administrés, le bourgmestre tire habilement prétexte de la proximité de l’exposition universelle de 1958 et s’arrange pour inaugurer le château restauré au mois d’août, alors que la manifestation bat son plein.

Au moment de son acquisition par la commune, en 1930, les murs du château étaient encore blanchis à la chaux, dissimulant ainsi la belle brique espagnole dont on peut profiter aujourd’hui. Les fondations ont d’abord été refaites, le château reposant jusque-là à même le sol, sur un terrain marécageux. Le château a ensuite été partiellement rebâti entre 1952 et 1958 selon le plan classique du manoir, à mi-chemin entre la ferme et le château seigneurial. La grange, située du côté est de la cour intérieure, a été reconstruite en premier lieu. À son extrémité sud, un podium met en valeur une cheminée monumentale provenant du château d’Havré. De l’autre côté se trouve une taverne surmontée d’une galerie à balustres de style élisabéthain.

À l’intérieur, l’ameublement ne s’est pas limité à une époque déterminée, reflétant ainsi les apports successifs de ses occupants. Le salon est de style renaissance tandis que les deux salles à l’étage sont francisées. Dans les combles, aux charpentes apparentes, se trouve aménagée une salle de réunion à caractère monacal, de style Meuse et Rhin. L’oratoire a été reconstitué dans l’aile gauche de l’ancienne hostellerie, sous la tourelle à campanile. De beaux bâtiments ont enfin été reconstruits sur les côtés ouest et nord.

Le parc a été réaménagé en tenant compte de ses particularités historiques. Les douves du château ont été converties en étang. Une demi-lune en moellons de pierre, formant corbeille de fleurs, a été dessinée juste devant. Elle abrite de nombreux bancs dans de petites alcôves. À l’arrière du bâtiment, derrière un écran de peupliers, un jardin à la française avec vasques de fleurs et haies d’ifs de forme géométrique a été créé. Il conduit vers une vaste frondaison protégeant le jardin du boulevard tout proche.

Deux chemins pavés bordent le site : le premier, bordé par un sous-bois, sert d’entrée monumentale éclairée depuis le boulevard Louis Mettewie ; le second, abrité derrière une haie, relie l’avenue Jean de La Hoese à l’avenue de la Liberté et sert de desserte aux villas riveraines. Il délimite une vaste pelouse plantée qui offre une belle perspective sur le flanc nord du château.On y observe de nombreuses essences rares comme des araucarias et des genévriers. Fait remarquable, pas moins de huit espèces de conifères sont présents sur le site : pins, thuyas, cèdres, douglas, faux cyprès, cryptomeria du Japon, ifs, épicéas.

Les autorités communales molenbeekoises y célèbrent les mariages, la grange du château est destinée aux manifestations culturelles de prestige, voire plus populaires tel le Marché de Noël. Depuis 1999, le château accueille en juillet, août et septembre le Festival Bruxellons!, un festival de théâtre, mais ouvert aux autres arts de la scène (magie, musique, cirque, ...). Le conseil communal y est également organisé.

Les studios du Karreveld

Une autre activité, artistique celle-là, débute pratiquement en même temps que l'organisation des courses cyclistes : Charles Pathé confie à Alfred Machin, la mission d'exploiter le premier studio de films en Belgique. C'est en 1912, chaussée de Gand, à Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, que prend naissance le cinéma belge. Plusieurs films de qualité dont les deux premiers longs métrages belges conservés La Fille de Delft mais aussi le prémonitoire Maudite soit la guerre sont tournés dans l'environnement des studios du Karreveld. Alfred Machin commande l'exécution dans ce lieu d'un studio vitré, des ateliers, une infrastructure pour les artistes ainsi qu'un mini-jardin zoologique qui accueillent des animaux exotiques tels que des ours, des chameaux et des panthères.

Kasteel Karreveld

The Palace of Laeken, is the official residence of the King of the Belgians and the royal family. It lies in the Brussels region, 5 km (3 mi) north of the city centre in the municipality of Laeken. It sits in a large park called the Royal Domain of Laeken, which is off-limits to the public. It was originally named the Castle of Schonenberg and is often referred to as the Royal Castle.

The palace at Laeken should not be confused with the Royal Palace of Brussels, in central Brussels, which is the official palace (not residence) of the King of the Belgians and from which state affairs are handled.

History

he palace was built at Laeken, then outside of Brussels, between 1782-1784 after the plans of the French architect Charles de Wailly under supervision of Louis Montoyer as a summer residence for the Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria and her husband Albert of Saxe-Teschen. Jean-Joseph Chapuis provided the royal furniture.

On 21 July 1803, Nicolas-Jean Rouppe, as commissioner of the department of the Dyle, received Napoleon at the Palace of Laeken. Napoleon stayed at Laeken with the Empress Josephine in August 1804 on his way from awarding the first Légion d'honneur to his invasion troops at Boulogne to his progress along the Rhine, and later during the Hundred Days in 1815 dated this proclamation prematurely from the palace:

To the Belgians and the inhabitants of the left bank of the Rhine. The ephemeral success of my enemies detached you for a moment from my empire. In my exile, upon a rock in the sea, I heard your complaint; the God of Battles has decided the fate of your beautiful provinces; Napoleon is among you; you are worthy to be Frenchmen. Rise in a body; join my invincible phalanxes to exterminate the remainder of these barbarians, who are your enemies and mine: they fly with rage and despair in their hearts.

After Belgian independence, Rouppe, as mayor of Brussels, received the new king Leopold I at the Palace of Laeken on 21 July 1831; the day of Leopold's coronation. The palace was partly destroyed by fire in 1890 and was rebuilt by Alphonse Balat. The French architect Charles Girault gave it its present outline in 1902. It has been the royal residence since Leopold I's accession to the throne in 1831. The domain also contains the magnificent Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, a set of monumental dome-shaped constructions, accessible to the public for a few days each year. They were designed as well by Alphonse Balat, with the cooperation of the young Victor Horta.

Upon their accession to the throne in 1993, King Albert II and Queen Paola preferred to remain living at Belvédère, a château on the grounds of the park surrounding the palace. The current occupants of the palace are King Philippe, Queen Mathilde and their four children.

Palace of Laeken


Le château de Rivieren, un fleuron dans l'histoire de cette commune de Ganshoren (au nord-ouest de Bruxelles Capitale. Le château de Rivieren est situé au cœur d'un domaine entouré d'un étang (vestige des douves médiévales), dans un parc de 10 ha, le parc Albert Ier.

Origines

Il est mentionné sur une carte des environs de Bruxelles datant de 1665, mais son histoire commence déjà au xiiie siècle, puisqu'il tient son nom des Seigneurs de Rivieren d'Aerschot. Son allure actuelle lui sera donnée grâce à François II de Kinschot, comte de Jette-Saint-Pierre et conseiller des finances des Archiducs Albert et Isabelle, qui lui confère un statut de véritable lieu de plaisance.

Le château présente des caractéristiques architecturales des plus intéressantes. La fortification d'origine ne nous a laissée qu'une tour carrée, intégralement faite de pierres. Au fil du temps, différentes parties s'y sont ajoutées, constituées de briques et séparées par des bandeaux et chaînages de pierre, tandis que les superbes douves et le pont levis disparaissent à jamais.

La notoriété et le dynamisme de ses propriétaires successifs permettront au domaine d'être érigé en baronnie dès 1638, avant de devenir comté en 1659.

C'est ensuite Gérard-François de Villegas, petit-fils de François II de Kinschot, qui hérite de l'ensemble. Plus tard, dans le courant du xviiie siècle, le château sera laissé à l'abandon jusqu'à ressembler à une ruine. Différents travaux de rénovation seront entrepris par le comte Ulric, descendant des Villegas et héritier du domaine.

De nos jours

Après avoir été anéanti par de terribles incendies, le château connait une nouvelle phase de rénovations au début du xxe siècle. En 1973 décède la veuve d'Albert de Villegas et en 1977, les fils de la dernière châtelaine vendent le bien à une société suisse, qui restaure à grands frais le château et ses dépendances, avant de les exploiter comme lieux d'événements et de séminaires.

Le château et le parc sont classés depuis 1983, comme seul et unique vestige d'origine médiévale et de style féodal dans la région de Bruxelles-Capitale.

Enfin, depuis 1998, le château de Rivieren n'a plus ouvert ses portes au grand public. Il est toujours en parfait état, il a pu traverser les siècles et échapper de justesse à la folie urbanistique bruxelloise des années 1950-1960.

Rivieren Castle (Ganshoren)


The Château Malou is a neoclassical building in the municipality of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert in Brussels, Belgium. The Château Malou is situated at an altitude of 52 metres (171 feet).

History

The château was built in 1776 in the neoclassical style by a wealthy merchant called Lambert de Lamberts. The current building replaced a small 17th-century hunting lodge.

One of the château's owners was the orangist minister Pierre van Gobbelschroy, until the end of the Dutch period in 1829. After Belgium gained its independence from The United Kingdom of Netherlands, the château changed owners and eventually passed to the Finance Minister of the new Belgian government, Jules Malou (1810–1886). Malou occupied the building from 1853 onwards and the building has retained his name ever since.

The château is now the property of the municipality of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert and is primarily used for cultural activities, exhibitions, etc.

Maloukasteel

The Château of Val-Duchesse (French: Château de Val-Duchesse, Dutch: Kasteel van Hertoginnedal) is a mansion and estate situated in the municipality of Auderghem in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. The château, which occupies the site of a former priory, is owned by the Belgian Royal Trust.

Val-Duchesse played an important role as a venue for negotiations in Belgian and European politics after World War II. In 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the château, which prepared the Treaties of Rome in 1957 and the foundation of the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1958. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, the first European Commission, under the presidency of Walter Hallstein, was held on 16 January 1958 at the château.

From 23-25 April 1990, it hosted the Western European Union International Conference which agreed the sequence of accession of the Eastern European Countries of the former Warsaw Pact to European structures.[citation needed]

More recently, it has twice hosted the Belgo-British Conference, in 2002 and 2006.

History

The priory for women was founded in 1262 by Adelaide of Burgundy, Duchess of Brabant, widow of Henry III, Duke of Brabant. "Duchess Adelaide" gave her name to the place Val Duchesse or Hertoginnedal (both meaning Valley of the Duchess). According to the legend Aleydis was inspired by Saint Thomas of Aquin who is said to have been a guest at Val Duchesse. It was the first priory for women in the Low Countries that followed the rule of Saint Dominic and was generously donated by Aleydis and other noble ladies. According to her wish Aleydis' heart was interred at a mausoleum that today has disappeared.

The priory further flourished and gained considerable wealth thanks to the generous gifts of numerous royal persons and noble families. In 1650 a wall was erected to protect the diverse edifices of the priory. The present-day château was built as a residence for the prioress in 1780.

The Château of Val-Duchesse 

The de Viron Castle is a castle in Dilbeek, which houses the offices of the local authority.

History

It was built in 1863 by the Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar, commissioned by the de Viron family, which settled in Dilbeek in 1775. The Tudor-style castle was built on the ruins of a 14th-century fortification which was destroyed in 1862. One of the medieval towers, the Sint-Alenatoren, can still be seen in the park surrounding the current building. It is named after Saint Alena, who lived in Dilbeek.

On his visit to this fort, Charles V was reportedly served rabbit instead of his favourite hare, which resulted in the nickname konijnenfretters (rabbit eaters) for the inhabitants of Dilbeek.

It became the town house of Dilbeek in 1923, and was protected as a monument in 1990.

Architectury

The castle counts 12 towers, 52 rooms, 365 windows and 7 staircases. This refers to the Julian Calendar which has 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days and 7 days in a week. The castle lies in a parc, with several other buildings of interest : a farm, an ice cellar and a stagecoach building.

De Viron Castle

This eclectic chateau was built in the final quarter of the 19th century by the architect and designer Albert Charle, who was known as Charle Albert and who lived there for only a few years.

Between 1900 and 1914, the building was used as a college for young women from well-to-do families, and was then made available to the emergency services during the Great War by its two English owners, who converted it into a military hospital.

After the war, the “Maison Flamande” (Flemish House) was sold to a succession of private owners who, in turn, sold it in 1933 to the Prime Minister, Paul van Zeeland, who lived there until the start of the Second World War.

Occupied by the German army from 1940 to 1945, the chateau was subsequently recovered by its owner (upon his return from exile in the United States of America), who lived there until his death in 1973.

Abandoned immediately following his death, the chateau became home to squatters and was looted, defaced by graffiti and suffered three separate fires, rapidly falling into a state of ruin (for photographs, do a Google image search of “urbex Charle Albert”) until it was purchased in 1998 by a property developer who unsuccessfully tried to tear it down to build offices in its place.

The building (excluding the interior) was listed in the 1990s by the Royal Commission of Monuments and Sites, and was rebuilt exactly as before by its current owner as part of a massive project which began upon its repurchase in 2012 and was completed in 2015.

The renovation of the building is complete (except for some interior features), while the renovation of the grounds (fencing, flower beds, romantic bridge, lawns, pond, open-air theatre, etc.) has become possible since the granting of the necessary planning permission in January 2017.

The site is listed (and is therefore eligible for renovation subsidies) and is partly located in the “Natura 2000” protection area given its connection to the Sonian Forest.

The entire property is assigned for “office” use, although its current interior layout (non-listed) corresponds to its current use (housing).

A change of use from “office” to “housing” is usually a simple administrative formality, while the reverse is not true. All the more so as, in this case, this exceptional building has always been a dwelling.

http://www.charlealbert.be/

Château Charle Albert


Historiek
In oorsprong een feodale motte op de Laekebeek, historici vermoeden zelfs een Gallo-Romeinse villa of castrum op dezelfde plaats, naderhand bezet door de Franken en uitgegroeid tot een landbouwbedrijf; in de middeleeuwen werd deze site versterkt tot een motte die naderhand werd vervangen door een versterkte burcht voor de Brabantse hertogen die de omgeving geleidelijk inpalmden ten nadele van de Sint-Pietersabdij van Keulen. Vooral de ligging schuin tegenover de kerk en nabij het kruispunt van twee oude wegen bracht J. Verbesselt ertoe de Helle te identificeren als het primitieve dorpshof of Hof te Ruysbroeck. De eerste concrete verwijzing naar een hof van Ruisbroek is te vinden in een charter van 1289 toen Edmond Birclin van Keulen het hof en de heerlijkheid van Ruisbroek ontving van hertog Jan van Brabant. In 1309 wordt De Helle nog steeds aangehaald als castrum met pachthof en aanhorigheden ofschoon de militaire functie toen vermoedelijk was opgeheven.

In de loop der eeuwen kende het goed onder meer volgende eigenaars, de heren van Perwez (1210), van Stalle (1277), Jan van Aa (1372), Nicolaes de Swaef (1393), Jan de Taye (1455), Hendrik van Witthem (1511), Karel de Lalaing (1613) en Jan de Mérode (1657). In 1711 werd Filips Antoon d'Yve (1669-1732) de nieuwe eigenaar; hij was burggraaf van Bavay, baron d'Ostiche en heer van Warelles en vermoedelijk de bouwheer van het huidige kasteel; in 1732 werd de heerlijkheid tot graafschap verheven ten voordele van G.H.R. d'Yve d'Ostiche. Het goed bleef eigendom van deze familie tot de openbare verkoop in 1859. Nadien kwam het kasteel onder meer in handen van J. Couteaux (1860), J. de Faudeur (1863), V. Misson (1864), de familie van prins de Looz-Corswarem (1873), E. de Baerdemaeker (1897), burgemeester van Ruisbroek van 1908 tot 1913 en de familie Reinhard die het in 1985 verkocht aan de huidige eigenaar.

Het huidige kasteel werd vermoedelijk gebouwd ter vervanging van en op de fundamenten van een ouder, doch veel grootser geheel zoals blijkt uit een afbeelding van circa 1594 op de figuratieve kaart van de Zenne vanaf Hombeek tot Ruisbroek, opgemaakt door Mathieu Bollin: deze kaart toont een omwaterd vierkant complex met vier hoektorens, mogelijk daterend uit de vijftiende of de zestiende eeuw als verbouwing van een oudere donjon. Vermoedelijk raakte dit complex danig in verval in de loop van de zeventiende eeuw en in het tweede kwart van de achttiende eeuw werd het door de familie d'Yve d'Ostiche vervangen door een riant doch aanmerkelijk kleiner landhuis dat in zijn huidige vorm, met uitzondering van de zuidelijke serre, al voorkomt op een tekening van 1733 van de hand van F.I. De Rons. In de literatuur werd het kasteel voorheen vermoedelijk gedateerd omstreeks 1730. Recent bouwhistorisch onderzoek door S. Heremans laat toe de bouwperiode nauwkeuriger te bepalen, als zijnde de periode 1725-1732. Hij baseert zich hiervoor op archiefstukken van de familie van markies Henri d'Yve de Bavai.

Circa 1830, bij de aanvang van het kadaster, was het geheel eigendom van gravin Marie-Thérèse d'Yve. Het bestond toen uit het kasteel met binnenplaats en "lusthof"(zone binnen de omgrachting) en een "lustvijver" (omgrachting) met lustdreef (de brede strook die aan drie zijden de buitenoever van de omgrachting vormde). Het perceel tussen het kasteel en de straat stond omschreven als "hof" en was door een afgebakende oprit verdeeld in twee geometrische perken. De rest van het park bestond voornamelijk uit hoogstammige randbeplanting. Enkele bomen van de negentiende-eeuwse aanleg, onder meer een witte paardenkastanje en een gele trompetboom, bleven bewaard. In het verlengde van de oprit lag een brede, lange dreef die verbinding gaf met de Bergensesteenweg. Deze dreef is ook al zichtbaar op de Ferrariskaart van 1771-1777, maar verloor haar belang bij de aanleg van het kanaal Brussel-Charleroi in 1827-1833.

De omringende tuin werd circa 1860 door Misson uitgebreid in noordelijke richting tot aan de huidige Beemdstraat; het gebied besloeg toen meer dan drie hectare; deze zone is momenteel grotendeels aangestort. Bij de jongste renovatie van het kasteel (tweede helft jaren 1990) werd ook een deel van de tuin heraangelegd. Elementen ontleend aan de klassieke tuinkunst werden toegevoegd: een moestuin, tuinbeelden met figuren uit de klassieke oudheid, omhaagde compartimenten en een vijvertje in serpentine met cascade als evocatie van een rivierlandschap.



https://inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be/erfgoedobjecten/90849