Kasteel van Rivieren

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Kasteel van Rivieren, in Gelrode (Aarschot), is an eclectic château built in 1866 on a seigneurial site already recorded in 1197, within the fossil meander of the Demer known as the Vorsdonk bend. The seigneury of Rivieren, whose lords were related to the House of Aarschot, had an earlier medieval castle organised around a seigneurial tower, remains of which came to light during gardening work. In 1764, Charles Henry Dirix de Bretel, secretary to Marie-Thérèse, had a pleasure pavilion built; it was demolished in 1866 and replaced by a new eclectic manor house, built some fifty metres to the east by the widow of François Tahon. Oscar van den Eynde, who inherited the estate in 1877, was a member of parliament, provincial councillor and mayor of Gelrode. He enlarged the building in the 1880s, gave it its present appearance and made it his residence. The château, with two storeys above a basement, is flanked by two towers, one of which, a keep-like tower, ends in a pear-shaped spire; the ground-floor interior is Neo-Renaissance. It is surrounded by a landscaped park and an estate of about ten hectares.