Calixberg Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Calixberg Castle, in Schoten (province of Antwerp), occupies an estate where, from the end of the 11th century, a feudal burcht stood on the island of the pond, the "Burcht van Schoten", inhabited by the lords of Schoten until 1438. Destroyed by a fire, it was then covered by an artificial motte. The present castle was built at the beginning of the 17th century on the eastern bank of the pond, and then enlarged during the last quarter of the 19th century. It consists of a central block of seven bays, a L-shaped west wing and a polygonal east wing, built in brick and sandstone, under a slate roof, with polygonal corner turrets topped by sharp spires. It forms part of an 18th-century English-style landscape park, surrounded by moats, with a large pond featuring islets, a kitchen garden and orchard, as well as early 20th-century outbuildings (entrance pavilion, gardener's house with orangery, staff quarters), and a small neo-Gothic Marian chapel dating from 1911 which replaced an older chapel; the site's Marian devotion dates back to the 14th century.