Ter Meeren Castle: A Historic Seat of Zaventem and Sterrebeek
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Belgium
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Belgian, Duchy of Brabant, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page7 sections
History
Ter Meeren Castle is a historic castle in Belgium, located southwest of Sterrebeek in the domain along the Mechelsesteenweg. First mentioned in 1381, it served as the seat of the lordships of Zaventem and Sterrebeek, territories governed by a lord within the feudal system.
Lordship and succession
Ferdinand van Boisschot acquired the castle in 1605. He became a knight of the military Order of Santiago, a medieval Christian military order founded in the Iberian Peninsula, in 1621. He served as chancellor of the Duchy of Brabant from 1626 to 1650, became Baron of Saventhem, and acquired the lordship of Sterrebeek among his other possessions.
Ownership later passed through several families and lordly houses. These included the Königsegg-Rothenfels family, the Maes family, the lords of Ophem, the Rykewaert family in 1645, the van den Broeck family, and, from 1745, the de Fierlant family.
Nineteenth-century transformation
In 1866, Baron Aloïs de Fierlant commissioned a major restoration and enlargement of the castle. The work was directed by Joseph Schadde, an architect and archaeologist from Antwerp. The building was refurnished and reshaped in a historical style. De Fierlant was mayor of Sterrebeek, and in 1871 his baronial title was extended to all his descendants.
The estate was sold at the end of the nineteenth century to Auguste Braun, a lawyer at the Court of Cassation, Belgium’s highest court for reviewing legal questions in judicial decisions.
Twentieth- and twenty-first-century history
At the end of 2000, Walter De Brouwer bought the castle, its outbuildings, and park with the intention of historically reconstructing the estate. He offered it for sale again after two years. A conditional sale to a Montessori school in 2002 did not proceed, and the property was later sold for a proposed film school, a project that was never realized.
In the early twenty-first century, the castle passed to the Russian oligarch Vladimir Scherbakov and his wife, Elena. They arranged partial restoration between 2010 and 2015. Scherbakov was found hanged in the castle on 10 June 2017, and the police investigation classified the death as suicide. The property subsequently came into the possession of two of his children.
The park has been protected as a cultural-historical landscape since 11 July 1974. The fourteenth-century castle and its associated buildings received monument protection on 12 June 2001, followed by protection for the entire domain on 5 October 2009. In 2021, the castle and domain were offered for sale again for 10 million euros and were described as deteriorating.
Remains
Castle complex
Ter Meeren Castle is a complex of brick and natural stone attached to a square fourteenth-century donjon, the principal fortified tower of a medieval castle. The donjon measures 8.5 by 8.5 metres and forms the oldest identified element of the complex.
During the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, the castle was enlarged with a stair tower and an L-shaped residential wing. This wing included a domestic chapel. The 1866 rebuilding extended the chapel at its choir end, the part containing the main liturgical space near the altar, and duplicated the southwest wing. A corner tower was added as a counterpart to the donjon on the opposite side.
Park and associated buildings
A Romantic park was created around the castle in 1865. A partly preserved avenue runs directly from the castle toward the Church of Saint Pancras, the parish church of Sterrebeek.
The estate includes a coach house, a stable wing, a gardener’s house, a garden cottage, and a garden pavilion. Its landscape features also include a cast-iron arch bridge over a pond and an ice cellar.
Nearby sites
