Ten Torre Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Ten Torre Castle lies south of Beernem, in West Flanders. The "goed ten Torre", with a castle, is mentioned as early as 1353 in the accounts of the Bogaerde school in Bruges; in 1529 the King of France ceded the lordship to Charles V, and in 1531 the estate passed to the children of Francis van Zinckenghem, then in 1565 to Jan Pardo, burgomaster of Bruges. Pieter Pourbus's map (1570) depicts it, and a cadastral survey of 1657 describes it with a upper and lower courtyard. The present castle was built in 1854 according to the cadastral survey (1845 according to a secondary source) for Baron Hector Lebailly de Tilleghem. It is a water castle with a square plan, four hexagonal corner towers, in red brick with stone string courses, a round-arched arcade, rosette oculi and an open gallery at the top. Around 1895, the provincial architect Stefaan Mortier restored it for Joseph de Meester de Ravenstein, who added a loggia porch and converted one corner tower into a belvedere. The estate, reached by a long avenue, is privately owned and used as a holiday residence for groups; it is not open to visitors.