Château de Trazegnies

Trazegnies was the seat of a powerful and independent lordship on the border between the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Hainaut and the Principality of Liège, as well as the cradle of one of the most illustrious families in Europe. Several lords of Trazegnies participated during the Crusades, one of them was Constable of France under Saint Louis, another married by proxy in the name of Charles V the Infanta of Portugal, John III was made a Knight of the Golden Fleece, others were invested in high offices from the governors of the Netherlands.

The house of Trazegnies had a castle worthy of its name. Of the fortified house built by Gilles I, the Romanesque cellars remain, a rare testimony of the 11th century.

The fortified castle was sacked and burned in 1554 by the troops of the French king Henry II. At the beginning of the 17th century, Gillion-Othon de Trazegnies had the splendid main building erected, a jewel of the present castle and almost unique document in Belgium of Louis XIII style architecture.

On the death of the last Marquis de Trazegnies, the estate passed to his niece and then to a coal company which divided it before selling it to private individuals who, in turn in 1913, ceded it to the state. Gothic cellar at the base In 1926 the abandoned castle was in ruins and there was talk of razing it to the ground after having photographed it. It was then that, on the initiative of the architect Marcel Simon, the association "Les Amis du Château de Trazegnies" was established with the aim of restoring, conserving, maintaining and enhancing the monument as well as its park. In 1972 the suggestive entrance gate, which was in danger of collapsing, was perfectly restored.

An excavation campaign financed by the Walloon Region and lasted three years; 1997-1998 and 2000, made it possible to identify the defensive moat that ran along the medieval curtain wall and the presence of an escarpment wall, to find corner buildings and to update a fairly new defensive system at the foot of the castle.

In 2002, 2003 and 2004 important restoration and consolidation works were carried out on the entrance door and the east wing; it also proposed to rehabilitate the building with the aim of assigning it a cultural vocation on a regional scale. Two new modern halls and the castle hall, the volume of which is open up to the roof, are very suitable for exhibitions and cultural events. While all the old structures have been restored with respect for their authenticity and integrity, the new replacement or added elements have been treated according to today's design and concept.

The complete new development of the park carried out in 2004-2005 gives it a luster it had lost since the 19th century. The remains of the excavations materialized on the ground; a Dolomite footbridge follows the path of the dry moat, which surrounded the castle and the original thirteenth-century enclosure, bordered by a beech hedge. A 300-year-old plane tree, classified as a remarkable Belgian tree, dominates the main courtyard.

At the beginning of 2015 a vast restoration project began in the Louis XIII wing, all the rooms on the first floor and the Saint Laurent Chapel were renovated. It just ended in the spring of 2016.

Guided tours of the castle take place at 3pm, every Sunday and on public holidays throughout the tourist season, from 1 May to 30 September, public holidays.

You will leave, accompanied by our guides, to discover the castle, its gothic and Romanesque cellar, its prestigious rooms and its magnificent park.

The castle of Trazegnies remains there, standing, despite all the mutilations suffered, a witness to a prestigious past and faithful to its motto "Tan Que Vive".