En un regard
Le château en bref
Château Succa, also known as ‘Goed ter Saelen’, stands in Destelbergen, east of Ghent, at the heart of an estate of some seventeen hectares of parkland, woodland and tree-lined avenues, bounded by the Volderrede, the Kwadenplasstraat, the Gentstraat and the Zevensterrede.
The moated site was probably occupied as early as the late Middle Ages, but written sources only begin in the sixteenth century. The estate takes its name from the Succa family, of Italian origin, who held the lordship of Ter Saelen as a fief of the Abbey of Saint Peter in Ghent. Willem de Succa, married to Jeanne de Voorde, is considered the probable builder of the castle in the second half of the sixteenth century; Sanderus published a view of it in 1641. In the seventeenth century the property passed to the Rodriguez de Evora family, who were linked to the barony and then the marquisate of Rode. Damaged during the wars of Louis XIV, the building was sold around 1700, in poor condition, to the d’Oignies family, who partly rebuilt it; further alterations followed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The de Volder family owned it from 1844 to 1924, and the Brasseur family acquired it in 1924. From 1925, the architect Valentin Vaerwyck carried out a restoration (joinery, dormer windows, remodelling of some window openings), while Maurice De Wilde designed a French formal garden to the west of the castle in 1924.
The present building is a moated U-shaped castle, surrounded by a broad rectangular moat. Its three wings, of two storeys above cellars, are built of brick and dressed stone and are covered by tall slate hipped roofs pierced by dormer windows. A square five-storey stair tower, dating from the sixteenth century and topped with a spire, is partly enclosed within the angle of the courtyard. The entrance façade bears the date 1774 in iron wall anchors, around a central eighteenth-century doorway in blue stone. The estate also retains nineteenth-century stables painted pink, a former staff house probably dating from before 1700, a small farm, an enclosed kitchen garden with greenhouses and, to the south-west, a star-shaped crossroads of avenues known as a ‘patte-d’oie’, called ‘Zevensterre’, a remnant of the former network of avenues.
The castle, its access bridges, the stables, and the entrance bridge and gate are protected as a monument by decree of 23 January 1981, the same date on which the estate was also included in the protected site of the castles and their surroundings; it has, moreover, been recognised as architectural heritage since 2023. It is a private property.
