Motte den Dulft

En un regard

Le château en bref

Den Dulft Motte is a two-ring castle mound in Bornem (province of Antwerp), about 500 m south-west of the historic centre, in the private garden of a 19th-century manor house. Nearly 10 m high, with a base diameter of about 55 m, it overlooks the boundary between the higher land and the Scheldt polder. It is accompanied by a kidney-shaped bailey of roughly 60 × 180 m, separated from the inner bailey by a ditch about fifteen metres wide. No document dates its construction, but it is probably linked to the early lords of Bornem and to the Counts of Flanders' control of the Scheldt in the 11th century. In 1326, during the revolt against the Count of Flanders, the castle of Bornem was besieged by the men of Ghent, and the farm of Pieter van der Dilft, which gave the site its name, was destroyed. Maps of 1678, 1745–1748 and 1777 document the site's development: it became a farm before being transformed in the 19th century into a manor house with a landscaped park, and an observatory was built on the foundations of the medieval tower. An archaeological evaluation carried out in 2019–2020 confirmed the presence of a ditch between the two enclosures. The motte has been a protected monument since 21 February 1978.