Moriensart Château-Farm and Tower

The Château Moriensart, located in Céroux-Mousty, a village of the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, is a Belgian plain château whose origins can be traced back to the first half of the 13th century.

Although private property and not open to the public, you may be able to glimpse a good view of the tower from the entrance or the street. That being said, the site can be booked for marriages, business or private events, or even business meetings.

The Moriensart Tower gives vsistors a glimpse of what could have been, cerca the middle of the 13th century, a fortified house built within the Duchy of Brabant to resist invasions.

History

Originally a powerful Romanesque tower was built for Arnould I of Limal around 1220.

The name 'Moriensart' comes from the name “Moreau”, a knight of Limal in 1237, who built a defensive network in this location, to protect the Duchy of Brabant of which he was a vassal.

In 1511, the keep became the property of the Ferry family and then was passed on to the Le Vasseur family during the same century.

In the 17th century, the fortified domain passed to the Coloma family. They are the ones who crowned the dungeon with a Gothic pyramidal-style roof with three gable dormers and four polygonal corner towers made of bricks and bluestone. They also owned the Château Moriensart in Ransbeek now gone.

In the 17th century, buildings forming an unenclosed barnyard were already present. They were however destroyed by a fire in the 18th century and rebuilt at the end of the same century. In the 19th century, it was enlarged and took on the aspect of a square farm which it has kept to this day.

This large and beautiful late Roman style tower is in the open country and enjoys an unobstructed view of the fields. The brick superstructure, consisting of four turrets and three tiered windows, was added around 1600. A dungeon was accessed through the farm barnyard. This was devastated by a fire in 1780 and rebuilt at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century.

A traditional Brabant farm, typical of the 18th century, the Moriensart farm is organized around a vast irregular court where a fountain flows. The home, stables, cowsheds, sties, barns and plow shed extend as a quadrilateral at the foot of the dungeon.

A portion of the stables and its outbuildings were renovated into a reception hall and seminaries, while preserving the original framework and roofs. This farm and its tower currently belong to the Gericke d’Herwijnen family.

Today

Inhabited nowadays as it used to be, it is a rare example of a private residence in this type of building in Brabant. Alvaux, Walhain, Opprebais, Corbais, Sombreffe are other similar examples in the vicinity, but their dungeons are empty.

The dungeon is classified in the major heritage of Wallonia.

https://www.moriensart.be/

Tour et Château-ferme de Moriensart
Rue de Moriensart 9
1341 Céroux-Mousty-Ottignies
Propriété privée.