Hof Ter Borght

Hulshout, Belgium, Belgium

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Hof Ter Borght is a 20-hectare castle estate in Westmeerbeek, a village of Hulshout in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, situated along the meandering Grote Nete river at the edge of the Merode landscape.

The main building is a late 18th-century classicist country house, originally constructed in 1780 and later given a 19th-century neoclassical appearance, with lower 19th-century side wings flanking the facade and notable outbuildings including a rare, almost unique orangery, a grape house, a coach house, and a volière.

The estate figured in history in 1831 as a command post for Leopold I, Belgium’s first king, and was later sold in 1859 to Baron A.C.N. de T’Serclaes, after which it evolved into a manicured castle park with a central pond, three small islands, one of which carries a 20th-century “duck pavilion” on a rustic concrete style, traditional beech and other old trees, and a hidden ice cellar.

The castle and its park are protected as monuments, and while the main building remains in private hands with plans to convert it into a hotel, the surrounding park has been leased and then taken over by Stichting Kempens Landschap in partnership with the municipality of Hulshout, and is now open to the public for walking from sunrise to sunset along marked routes and a boardwalk from the Netedijk.