The Château d'Acoz is located in the heart of the Biesme valley, in grounds with gardens, ponds, meadows, woods and hills. It consists of two wings to the south and east and a tower to the north-east. It was a huge fortified quadrilateral structure. In the 12th century, the Acoz estate was a dependency of the Floreffe Abbey. It became the property of the Marotte family in 1543 and remained so for the next two centuries. The Marotte family was ennobled in 1629. In 1760 the castle passed to the family of Michel-Joseph d'Udekem. Finally, in 1860, the castle was sold to the Pirmez family. In 2001, Tony Cammaert, an antiquarian from the Grand Sablon of Brussels who specializes in Japanese art, acquired the site. Since then he has carefully restored the castle and the estate offering a prestigious location for events, with a multipurpose space perfect for concerts, shows, exhibitions, conferences, seminars, birthdays, weddings.
Château d'Acoz History
The Château d'Acoz also known as Château Pirmez is located in Acoz, a fraction of the Belgian municipality of Gerpinnes, in the province of Hainaut, is an imposing stone building located in the center of a park in the Biesme valley that feeds the moat. Of the vast fortified quadrilateral dating from the turn of the century, only an isolated tower to the north-west and two wings to the east and south remain, which have been transformed into the history of the ancient Carolingian domain of Gerpinnes, the Lordship of Acoz belonged to the Count of Namur. Purchased in 1543 by the de Marotte family, it then passed to the de Quiévrain in 1727, then in 1759 to the d'Udekem (ancestors of the current Queen Mathilde of Belgium). The last representative, Jacques d'Udekem, sold the property to the widow of Édouard Pirmez on 21 July 1816. Despite having undergone transformations and extensions over the centuries, the current castle has kept some ancient parts dating back.
In 1865, the archaeologist Octave Pirmez, explored a Merovingian cemetery with twenty-five tombs in the castle wood, in a place called Monplaisir, and various bronze objects, while in 1876 he discovered a Roman monetary treasure of one hundred and fifty coins contained in an olla with the effigies of Nero, Vespasiano, Domiziano and Adriano
In 2001, the property was bought by Tony Cammaert, an Antwerp antiques dealer and restaurateur specializing in Japanese art.