Kasteel Roosbeek

En un regard

Le château en bref

Roosbeek Castle, in Roosbeek (municipality of Boutersem, Flemish Brabant), was built between 1640 and 1650 by Rodolf de Navarro (or Navarra), a Spanish quartermaster and governor of the castle of Courtrai, whose tombstone stands against the Church of St Anne in Boutersem. A sketch from the 1650s appears in a cartulary of the Park Abbey, and the Ferraris map (1771–1777) shows U-shaped buildings oriented to the south-east, approached by a straight avenue 500 metres long that disappeared at the beginning of the 19th century. Owner from 1810 to 1851, Gaspar de Loën d'Enschede had a pleasure garden of nearly 6 hectares laid out around 1820. The castle was extensively remodelled in 1882–1884 to a design by the architect Joris Helleputte, with little regard for historical authenticity according to the inventory. The Chevalier Philippe de Wouters de Bouchout acquired the estate in 1905; his heirs sold it in 1946 to a timber merchant. The estate, once surrounded by a moat, included a pond and mill system; its park with straight axes, added around 1840, saw its large pond increase fourfold in surface area between 1930 and around 1950.