Kwabeek Castle: A Historic Estate in Boutersem, Belgium
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Belgium
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Belgian, Duchy of Brabant, Dutch, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page14 sections
History
Kwabeek Castle is a historic estate in Vertrijk, now part of Boutersem in Belgium. Its first references date from the fourteenth century, when it was held as a fief of the Duchy of Brabant, a feudal arrangement in which property was granted in return for obligations. The present building has a neoclassical character and a core generally dated to 1718, while the estate preserves traces of a much older residential, agricultural, and milling complex.
Medieval origins and the Van der Ee succession
Vertrijk contains traces of the Roman settlement of Vertacum. Roman villas in the area probably developed into farmsteads, and one of these may have provided the basis for the later castle. The territory was granted to the Van Rode lineage, one of the seven lineages of Leuven, whose members adopted the designation “Van Verteke.”
Godfried van Wesemael, also known as “ter Quabeeck” and lord of l’Ecluse, married Maria van Verteke of Vertrijk. Through this marriage he acquired the residential tower, mill, and tenant farm at Vertrijk. These holdings gave rise to the former names Ter Sluizen and Quabeeck farmstead. Documents from 1374 name Jan and Godfried van Montenaken as tenants of the estate’s rent-producing properties. After pressure from the abbot of Affligem, the estate was transferred to Godfried van Montenaken in 1377, when the official name Ter Sluizen appeared.
Philips van Tudekem the Elder later purchased the rent and milling rights from Affligem Abbey. His son, the knight Philips van Tudekem the Younger, inherited them and was a tenant of the Ter Sluizen mill in 1405 and 1406. Jan van Borchoven acquired the castle in 1428, but debts forced him to transfer it to his creditor, Bartholomeus van der Ee. Around 1496, Bartholomeus obtained Kwabeek Castle through the previous owner’s debts. The estate remained with the Van der Ee family for several generations. Bartholomeus’s son Jan inherited it in 1505. Bartholomeus died on 13 November 1503 and Jan on 26 September 1544, and both were buried in Vertrijk church.
From family estate to viscountcy
After Jan van der Ee died, the castle passed to his cousin Jan van Houthem. In 1587, Jan’s cousin Octavio Gasparini inherited it. During Gasparini’s tenure, the estate became a viscountcy in 1630, a hereditary title or territorial lordship associated with a viscount. The change was reportedly linked to the estate’s strategic location and age, and Octavio thereafter used the titles Viscount of Quebeeck and Lord of Vertrijk.
In 1668, Octavio Gasparini’s children sold the castle to Pierre Bosch to settle a debt. After Bosch’s death in 1698, his daughter Catherina Bosch and her husband, Dominique de Kerpen, probably lived there for a time. Jozef Goupy purchased the estate from Catherina Bosch, Bosch’s widow, in 1710. Emperor Charles VI ennobled Goupy in 1731. He died of cardiac arrest in 1735, and his son Jozef-Jacques Goupy received noble status from the same emperor in 1738 as Viscount of Quabeck. The title was hereditary and transferable to all descendants.
The Goupy period and the end of the feudal estate
Around 1750, the Goupy family commissioned improvements to the residence and created a French formal park. In 1770, Jozef-Jacques was forced to sell part of his property, although the principal parts of the estate remained intact. François Goupy inherited the castle in 1784 and removed feudal features, including the tower and drawbridge, in 1789.
The Goupy family fled to Vienna in 1794 during the French Revolution, a period of political upheaval that ended the French monarchy and brought military conflict across Europe. French troops looted the castle, and its surviving contents were publicly sold. The building then remained unoccupied for 16 years.
Nineteenth-century owners and transformations
Alexander Goupy acquired the estate from his parents in 1810 and sold it in 1813 to the knight Philippe de Wouters d’Oplinter Bouchout. After Philippe’s death, his son Auguste inherited the castle and later exchanged it with his brother Leon, who owned Roosbeek Castle through his marriage. Leon moved to Kwabeek. After his death, their eldest brother Alphonse acquired all rights to the estate, lived there, and carried out renovations and improvements. Alphonse’s son Lambert later sold the castle because he had no interest in it.
Count Robert de Liedekerke bought Kwabeek Castle in 1893 and died ten years later. During his ownership, improvements gave the building a neo-Renaissance appearance. The Jacmart family acquired it in 1903. German troops looted the castle in 1914, during the First World War, and it remained unoccupied until 1922.
Municipal ownership and later use
In 1922, Baron Antoine Ernst de Bunswyck, secretary-general of the Ministry of Justice, bought the property. He repaired the castle, added a service wing, and created a terrace beside the pond. His daughter Thérèse became the last private owner. She inherited the castle in 1945 and usually lived in an apartment in Brussels. Around 1970, she returned to Kwabeek after a serious car accident in Switzerland. Her increasingly secluded life and limited management of the castle and park contributed to their deterioration. She was murdered on New Year’s Eve 1979; her handyman was arrested but declared legally irresponsible.
In 1980, Thérèse’s heirs sold the castle and park, which then covered approximately 133.5 hectares. The municipality of Boutersem purchased the lot containing the castle and six hectares of park and pond, while 142 other lots went to private owners. After renovation, Kwabeek Castle became the municipal administrative center. The building is being retained for ceremonial services, including weddings and celebrations, despite plans for a new town hall elsewhere. The castle, park, and pond have immovable-heritage status under monument number 41588.
Remains
Kwabeek Castle stands within an estate associated with the Velpe, a watermill, a millpond, a farmstead, and landscaped grounds. Its historical arrangement developed around a castle motte, a raised defensive mound surrounded by water, together with an upper court and lower court. The castle occupied the upper court, while the farm formed the lower court. The straightened Velpe crossed the domain, and a long rectangular pond ran parallel to the river.
Castle and court buildings
Castle building
The core of the present neoclassical castle is generally dated to 1718. Before the extensive remodeling around 1893, it was a two-storey brick building with a sandstone base, rectangular windows, and a slate gabled roof. This restrained classicizing treatment remains visible at the rear. Around 1893, the left wing was replaced by a corner projection matching one on the right, while the front received a central projecting section with a stepped gable and a tall hipped roof.
Repairs carried out after 1922 produced the appearance associated with the castle around 1980. The central projection was given a mansard roof, a roof with two slopes on each side, and its stepped gable was replaced by a balcony window. A window on the west facade was converted into a door leading to a terrace beside the pond.
Motte, mill, and farmstead
The original estate included the water-surrounded castle motte, a watermill, and the lower court. The mill and tenant farm were part of the residential and economic complex associated with Vertrijk. Around 1815, approximately eight metres of the moat were filled where the drawbridge had stood. The moat therefore ceased to form a closed circuit and remained as an L-shaped water feature.
The estate’s buildings and water features retained a straight, geometrically angular arrangement after this alteration. By 1846, only three small ponds remained from the moat. In 1872, part of the farm was converted into a coach house, a building for carriages and related equipment, while a bakehouse was built beside it.
Water and park landscape
Ponds and river setting
The domain originally contained a large elongated pond parallel to the Velpe and a smaller triangular pond on the river’s right bank. The triangular pond probably served as the millpond or as a holding basin for the watermill. Around 1815, the altered moat and associated waters formed part of the estate’s angular plan. Between 1830 and 1835, the park was redesigned in an early landscape style while retaining its straight-line patterns and framing. Two bends were introduced into the previously straightened Velpe in 1846, and the grounds acquired the undulating outlines, widened areas, and sudden constrictions associated with that redesign.
Formal gardens and park structures
In the eighteenth century, the estate included the Sterrenbos, or Star Forest, whose paths formed a six-pointed star. Orchards, a third woodland parcel, and a continuous avenue connected parts of the grounds. The Ferraris map of 1771 to 1775 shows a complex geometric layout with woodland, ponds, and a large gridded plot probably used as an ornamental embroidery parterre, a formal garden bed with intricate patterns, or as a kitchen garden. A small building at its edge was probably a pavilion or gloriette, a small ornamental garden pavilion.
Around 1893, the geometric garden and a large arable plot were combined into a single area called the pleasure ground. The entire estate was redesigned again in 1900 in a late landscape style. After 1922, part of that design was reversed in favour of a geometrically symmetrical plan. A pavilion and greenhouse were added in 1882. A vegetable cellar lies beneath the pavilion, and an icehouse, an insulated building for storing ice, was constructed in the Star Forest during the same period.
Eastern plane tree
Behind the castle stands an eastern plane tree, Platanus orientalis, with a trunk circumference of approximately ten metres. It was planted in 1810 as five trees placed in one planting pit. Their trunks developed into a thick, multi-stemmed form.
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