Neyhoven Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Neyhoven Castle, also known as Nieuwenhove or Muller Castle, is a former moated country house in Leeuw-Saint-Pierre (Flemish Brabant), held as a fief from the court of Gaasbeek. In the 15th century it belonged to the Van der Meeren family. In 1579 Karel Van der Meeren, a canon of the chapter of St Gummarus in Lier, still held it, before the de Berlo family bought it in 1593 and took the title of lord of Nieuwenhove. A fire during the religious troubles destroyed the estate, which was rebuilt in 1608. A deed of sale from 1688 describes it as a farm supplemented by a pleasure house, a flower garden, moats and ponds, orchards, meadows and fields. The Ferraris map (1771–1777) names it ‘Château Neyhoven’, and in 1833 Count Antoine van der Dilft, the first major landowner in the municipality, was its owner. The manor house, surrounded by partly filled-in moats, has a rectangular plan in brick and dressed stone. It is a ‘diephuis’ with a double body of three bays on two storeys, under a slate roof, and is distinguished by a seven-step stepped gable and windows framed in bluestone.