Nieuwermolen Castle, Dilbeek

En un regard

Le château en bref

Nieuwermolen Castle stands on the Bruggeveldstraat in Sint-Ulriks-Kapelle, a district of the municipality of Dilbeek in the Flemish Brabant. First mentioned in the fifteenth century, it takes its name from the neighbouring watermill, which then belonged to the lords of Capelle. Ruined during the Wars of Religion, the estate was bought in 1587 by Lodewijk Verreycke, a diplomat and first secretary to Philip II, who had the house rebuilt: the façade wall anchors bear the dates 1596 and 1606. The building is a fine example of the moated ‘maison de plaisance’ (country house) of the former Low Countries, in brick enhanced with white sandstone from Balegem, on an L-shaped plan. The west wing is organised around a fifteenth-century keep of three and a half storeys beneath a slate spire, while the residential south wing opens through an eighteenth-century entrance, and stepped gables, including a double gable dated 1606, punctuate the façades. Plundered by the troops of Louis XIV in 1695 and again in 1794, the castle remained in the hands of the Verreycke family until 1754, then passed to Joseph-Adrien Anne, who probably modernised it, before going to several other families and entering the de Ghellinck Vaernewyck family in 1910. Damaged during the First World War, it was restored from 1928 to 1932–1933 under Marc de Ghellinck, with Paul Saintenoy responsible for the interiors and Leo Van Bever for the exterior. The garden was then recreated after a plan of 1783, with a drève (avenue) of four rows of lime trees, a star-shaped wood and an oval parterre in the courtyard. Listed as a monument since 5 December 1962, the castle forms part of an estate that has been included in the Flemish architectural heritage inventory since 2021. Still owned by the de Ghellinck Vaernewyck family, it is undergoing a gradual restoration of its roofs, gutters and gables, supported in 2026 by the Flemish Region.