En un regard
Le château en bref
Altena Castle, at Kontich (Antwerpsesteenweg 73-77), is a former fief held of the Land van Mechelen. In the 13th century it belonged to Gosuinus Boc van Pluysegem; it then passed to Bouden de Boc (14th century), to the lords of Diest, to the Pot family (15th century), then to Heyman Henricss (1505), Jacob Peeters and Sebastiaan van Dael (1536). A stone house or pleasure pavilion is said to have been built there between 1536 and 1539; the farm was destroyed at the end of the 16th century, but the castle was spared. There followed the Van Hove family, Willem Despomereaux (the lordship became a barony in 1675) and his descendants, the de Brouckhoven de Bergeyck family (18th century), the de Visscher and de Liedekerke families (19th century), Rancelot-de Meulenaere (1835) and de Neuf de Burght (1841). Van den Branden de Reeth, owner in 1858, had the estate rebuilt in 1860-1870; Havenith remodelled it and sold it in 1874 to the Sisters of the Holy Family, who established an institution there and then a school. Around 1960, the surrounding grounds were parcelled out for building. The present castle is a square building of two storeys, with a mansard roof, built of brick on a base of blue stone, flanked to the east by an engaged semicircular tower. A Neo-Gothic chapel, built in 1895-1898 to designs by the architect Ernest Pelgrims, and a landscaped park from the second half of the 19th century complete the ensemble.
