En un regard
Le château en bref
Situated along the Oostendesteenweg, in Eernegem, a section of the municipality of Ichtegem in West Flanders, the Moerbeek estate is a former castle domain whose main residence has disappeared. A château already appears on the original 1835 cadastral plan, when the property belonged to Deridder, justice of the peace in Ostend. The Atlas des chemins vicinaux (around 1841) and the Vandermaelen map (around 1850) also label it as a ‘château’, accompanied by elongated ponds.
The estate underwent its major development under the Breydel family of Bruges. In 1866, Karel Breydel-De Brock had a new château built there, along with greenhouses. After his death, his widow had a chapel built in 1893, today known as the Breydel chapel. Maria Breydel then commissioned a dwelling and a coach house in 1897; the present caretaker’s lodge and stables date from this campaign according to the cadastre. The cadastre also records the construction of a château and an ice house in 1899, followed by an extension to the château in 1908. This residence, of five bays over three storeys under a slate roof, was demolished in 1965 on the initiative of Robert Van Biervliet, for whom two new volumes were built on the estate in 1968.
What survives today bears witness above all to the layout of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: a single-storey caretaker’s lodge in orange brick with stone string courses, the stables, the small chapel nestled in the western corner beneath lime trees, and a landscape-style park comprising a pond crossed by bridges in cement imitating rustic wood, lawns, groves and clusters of trees, where beeches predominate. The estate is almost entirely enclosed by walls, except on the side of the roadway, which is bordered by an old yew hedge; a plane tree near the entrance serves as a landmark. The whole is listed as protected architectural heritage (vastgesteld bouwkundig erfgoed) in the Flemish inventory of immovable heritage.
