Binckhorst Castle: A Dutch Baroque Manor in The Hague
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Netherlands
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Dutch
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page17 sections
History
Binckhorst Castle is a historic manor in The Hague, Netherlands, built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Dutch Baroque style over the remains of a demolished medieval castle. The original foundation date is unknown, although the name Binckhorst appears in 1076 and the castle is first explicitly mentioned in 1308. Its position beside the Haagse Trekvliet later connected the estate with water transport, while its successive rebuilding and reuse reflect the changing history of the surrounding landscape.
Medieval origins and the Trekvliet
In 1308, Simon van Benthem transferred Binckhorst to Count William III of Holland, who granted it back to him as a fief. The arrangement included unusually favorable inheritance rights. This has led to the suggestion that a brick castle was constructed shortly before 1308, although the date of its foundation remains uncertain. Simon was married to Jacoba van Wassenaar, whose dowry included Rosenburgh Castle near Voorschoten.
Their son Jacob inherited Binckhorst. He left the clergy in 1328, adopted the name Jacob van de Binckhorst, and later served as bailiff of Rijnland and Woerden and as a member of the count’s council. The castle’s economic position changed after the Haagse Trekvliet was dug in 1344 and 1345, linking the moats of The Hague with the Vliet. Because Binckhorst could control movement along the canal, traffic increased its practical importance. Turf from the surrounding peatlands travelled along the Trekvliet and the Spui to the Binnenhof. The canal was later embanked and became associated with the Binckhorstpolder.
Sieges and changing ownership
Binckhorst was drawn into the Hook and Cod Wars, a fourteenth-century civil conflict in the County of Holland between the Hook faction, linked broadly with aristocratic and traditionalist interests, and the Cod faction, associated with urban and princely power. Jacob van Rozenburg supported the Hooks, and forces of Count William V captured the castle after a short siege in 1351. A small trebuchet previously used at the siege of Rosenburgh was brought to Binckhorst, while the chamberlain purchased 50 wooden plates during the siege.
In 1359, Delft, aligned with the Cod faction, besieged and captured Binckhorst. The castle was reportedly burned afterward, and one account says that its walls disappeared. After the Dutch revolt against Spain, a new castle was erected on the old foundations. Ownership passed through several families. Johan van Lyenburch received the estate from Jan van Arkel in 1389, Dierc Ploech bought it in 1409, Dirc van Swieten bought it in 1435, and Aert van Zwieten owned it from 1458.
Dirk Poes Zijbrandszn acquired Binckhorst in 1464. In 1563, the fief passed through the marriage of Johanna Poes to the Flemish knight Willem Snouckaert. A dispute over Johanna’s will led Lodewijk Pous to attempt to evict Snouckaert with armed men and guns. Martin Snouckaert van Schauburg succeeded Willem in 1565 and gave Binckhorst to his brother Jacob Snouckaert in 1569. Jacob won the subsequent litigation with the Poes family.
The Snouckaert period and the early-modern manor
The Snouckaert family and its descendants occupied Binckhorst continuously from 1563 to 1678, longer than any other line of owners. Jacob Snouckaert established the Snouckaert van Binckhorst branch. The estate then passed to his son Jacob Snouckaert van Binckhorst, who lived from 1548 to 1617, and later to two further successors named Jacob.
In 1613, Philibert van Borsselen dedicated the poem Den Binckhorst to Jacob Snouckaert van Binckhorst. The poem celebrated the castle, its gardens, its agricultural land, plants, fruit trees, and birds. A new wing was probably added around 1616, during the period when the early-modern manor was taking shape.
Willem van Nobelaer, lord of Wissekerke, acquired Binckhorst in 1678 through his marriage to Wilhelmina Snouckaert. After his death in 1685, Wilhelmina inherited the castle and sold it in 1690 to Henry du Vernet, lord of Lavalle. Johan Huyman, a Rotterdam merchant, bought the estate in 1727 and modernized the building in the style of the eighteenth century. Later owners invested less in the castle and gardens, and the estate declined.
Decline, municipal ownership, and reconstruction
During the French period, Binckhorst was acquired by Mr. Sanders, an owner of a shipping line. Mr. Volcker bought the deteriorated castle in 1923, carried out urgent repairs, and opened a bar there. H. van Kuik purchased it in 1925 with plans for a boarding house and tearoom. The municipality of The Hague acquired the castle in 1928 without the associated grounds. A boundary adjustment had transferred Binckhorst from Voorburg to The Hague in 1907.
A major restoration began in 1935 under the city architect H. H. van Zeggeren as part of a youth-employment program. The city considered reconstructing either the post-1727 appearance or the form that preceded Huyman’s alterations. Financial constraints resulted in the post-1727 version. The building’s inadequate foundations required most of it to be dismantled and rebuilt, while the stair-tower section and a small adjoining part retained original fabric. The work was completed in early 1938.
Binckhorst is protected as a Rijksmonument, a monument legally designated in the Netherlands as nationally important. During Dutch military mobilization in 1939, the army requisitioned the castle for the Seventh Searchlight Department. During the Battle for The Hague in May 1940, three volunteers attempting to supply the searchlight post near Ypenburg were killed. A memorial was unveiled in the castle garden on 14 August 1940, and an annual commemoration takes place there on 4 May.
War, institutional use, and redevelopment
After the bombing of Rotterdam, Binckhorst accommodated refugees from the city. In April 1942, it became an orphanage for boys, who remained there until the late 1950s. In 1958, the Foundation for Vocational Training in the Building Industry took up residence under a lease from The Hague. The municipality authorized an additional office building in 1969 and sold the castle and land to the foundation, which remained the owner and user until the 1990s.
In 1993, Menno Smitsloo, a property developer from Oegstgeest, bought the castle and the office building in front of it. After a major renovation, a private plastic-surgery clinic occupied the castle from the mid-1990s until 2020. By 2022 to 2024, the building was being used as a childcare center. The Binckhorst district has meanwhile changed from an industrial area into a residential district. Demolition of former office buildings initially made the castle more visible, while high apartment buildings constructed in 2023 and 2024 again obscured it from some directions.
Remains
Binckhorst Castle stands on a low hill beside the Haagse Trekvliet and is enclosed by a moat, part of which survives. Its circular setting and moat have been regarded as characteristic of older castles. The present brick manor occupies only part of the medieval castle’s footprint and is generally described as Dutch Baroque. Much of the visible building is the result of the 1935 to 1938 reconstruction, rather than an entirely surviving early-modern structure.
Medieval castle footprint
Archaeological excavations carried out in 1936 and 1937 revealed a medieval plan somewhat more than twice the size of the current building. The plan was irregularly square, with defensive walls and a moat. Its size and defensive character suggest an organically developed castle that predates the late-thirteenth-century standardized square castle with projecting towers. A fourteenth-century description mentions a hall on the lower level and a tower above the first floor.
The excavated plan demonstrates that the present manor occupies only a portion of the earlier stronghold. This relationship explains why medieval masonry and reused large bricks occur beneath later walls. The landscape beside the Trekvliet also retained a physical connection with the waterway that had influenced the castle’s historical function.
Core of the present manor
Stair tower and small house
The oldest surviving core consists of a stair tower, identified in the building analysis as part I, and a small house known as part II. Entry to the tower was possible only from inside the house. Part II had a vaulted basement whose upper level stood about 90 centimetres above the present ground level. An exterior stair leading to this basement was found during the 1930s investigation.
The outward-facing surfaces of parts I and II beside the later sections were carefully finished as exterior walls. This treatment indicates that the areas now forming the core were built or conceived as separate sections at different stages. Their foundations were weak in places, consisting of several courses of reused medieval bricks, or kloostermoppen, beneath walls about two bricks thick. The weakness caused the tower to lean by approximately 60 centimetres by the 1930s. The red bricks used in this construction measured about 19 to 20 by 9 to 9.5 by 4.5 centimetres.
Later building sections
Foundation depth varies across the building. Near the tower on the front side, the foundation was substantial at the southernmost point but ended abruptly about one metre away. There, walls stood almost at ground level over debris-rich soil considered firm enough to support them. Elsewhere, foundations reached 90 centimetres or more. The foundation at the northern corner of part III was about two metres deep and contained reused masonry, four courses of large yellow medieval bricks, nine courses of red sixteenth-century brick, and medieval masonry below.
A vertical seam at another northern corner extended from the wall between parts III and V down to the foundations, which included a course of medieval bricks. The wall between parts III and IV had a similar medieval-brick foundation and was built of red bricks measuring about 19 to 20 by 9 to 10 by 4.5 centimetres. It was structurally separate from the wall of part II, and its oldest section rose only about 1.60 metres above the floor.
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century additions
Parts III and IV
An image from 1614 shows parts II and III with separate roofs, while part V had not yet been built. A sundial probably dating from 1616 and documentary evidence place the construction of part IV around that year. Its red bricks sometimes contain yellow veins, while some are yellow with red coloration. They measure about 18 by 9 by 4 centimetres. The rear wall was later renovated with smaller bricks measuring about 16 by 7 by 3.5 centimetres.
Part V and the stepped gables
Part V was built soon after part IV. Its cellar used brick similar to that of part IV, while the upper walls contain several types of brick, making the masonry difficult to date. A drawing by Roelant Roghman shows the building with three stepped gables and part V still lower than the other sections.
After 1690, the stepped gables were removed, and parts II and V were probably brought beneath one roof. Huyman’s alterations after 1727 included moving and enlarging windows and placing the front door in a larger frame with adjoining windows. The windows in part V and the tower were altered later, probably in the late nineteenth century. Until the end of that century, the principal entrance faced the Trekvliet, while the entrance was later moved to the side facing the present Binckhorstlaan.
Reconstruction and garden memorial
1930s rebuilding
The rebuilding of 1935 to 1938 introduced a double concrete ring foundation about two metres deep, with the space between the rings filled with concrete. Approximately 2.5 million bricks were removed and relaid, supplemented in part by bricks from demolished outbuildings. Most walls and all four facades were rebuilt, largely with original material. Oak stairs, doors, paneling, and banisters were reinstated using designs by Van Zeggeren.
The reconstruction also installed electric lighting, central heating, water pipes, and sewers, and it partly changed the interior plan. The gardens were left unchanged. Only the stair-tower section and a small adjoining part remained substantially original after the work, while most of the present castle consists of rebuilt walls and foundations.
Entrance gate and war memorial
A richly decorated mid-eighteenth-century iron entrance gate was installed beside the castle in 1938. It came from the former Dijkerwaal country estate in ’s-Gravenzande and was made in the Louis XV style. During restoration, its original inscription, “Dijker Waal,” was replaced by “Bick Horst.” The crest-like ornaments above the paired gateposts and the crowning element above the gates were removed or simplified.
The castle garden contains the memorial to Sergeant H. van der Waals, Corporal A. van Ginkel, and Soldier J. J. Fröling, the three volunteers killed during the 1940 military operation. The monument was unveiled on 14 August 1940.
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