Kasteel Coppens

En un regard

Le château en bref

Château Coppens, also known as Kasteel Zwaenhoek or Kasteel Piers de Raveschoot, stands in Melle on the right bank of the Scheldt. This neoclassical country house with Empire-style features was built in 1833 for a man from Ghent named C. Coppens; the archives attribute it, along with the orangery, to the architect Louis Minard. It has a double block of five bays, two and a half storeys above a basement, a hipped roof, a central breakfront with Corinthian columns and stucco decoration. Inside are a circular staircase, stucco ceilings and salons in the Flemish Renaissance Revival and Louis XVI Revival styles. The orangery resembles a classical temple with six columns on the south façade. Alfred, and then Stanislas Piers de Raveschoot, owned the estate of about 14 hectares until the early twentieth century. The meander of the Scheldt, cut off in 1882, now forms the park's pond, where excavations have revealed remains of the Nieuwen-Bosch convent, a thirteenth-century monastery from Heusden. The gate pillars come from former city gates of Ghent. Since 1937, the estate has housed a horticultural school, today the Tectura Tuinbouwschool Melle. The château, the orangery and the orchard have been protected as a monument since 22 April 1994.