Boutersem Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Boutersem Castle stands on the Louvain road (Leuvensesteenweg) at Tienen (Tirlemont), near the confluence of the Velpe and the Kleine Vondelbeek. It should not be confused with the former seigniorial castle of the barony, built around 1647 for Jean-Jacques de Caestre beside a medieval motte, about half a kilometre downstream. That building was razed around 1800, and only its motte remains, at the locality known as Droge Vijvers. The present estate grew out of a milling complex comprising a grain mill, a brewery, a house, a farm and a pleasure garden. By around 1830 it belonged to the rentier Jan-Baptist Janssens. The Brussels–Liège railway line, opened in 1838, cut through its southern part. In 1854 the brewery was demolished and an octagonal garden pavilion was built. In 1890, Joseph Bertrand, co-partner of the Tienen sugar refinery P.P. Van den Bossche frères et Janssens, took over the property and had the castle built a few dozen metres south of the mill. The building, square in plan, is of brick in an eclectic style inspired by the Flemish Renaissance: two storeys on a high plinth, substantial attics, bow windows, terraces, sandstone quoins and string courses, and a porch on the park side whose tympanum bears the date 1890 and a coat of arms. After Eugène Beauduin, owner in 1919, Georges de Kerchove d'Exaerde (died 1937) extended the landscaped park eastwards to nearly 13 hectares. His family occupied the castle until the late 1980s. Sold in 1993, the former estate is now divided among six private properties. The park retains old copper beeches, oriental plane trees and a brick playhouse dating from 1910. The whole has been listed as architectural heritage since 8 October 2021.