Heeswijk Castle
In the course of the centuries so much has been built, demolished and carpeted at Heeswijk Castle that medieval builders today would have great difficulty recognizing their castle. Heeswijk may be a construction history jumble, it is still a large, imposing and beautifully situated complex that can rightfully be considered as one of the important medieval castles of North Brabant.
To begin with, there is the respectable age of perhaps around 950 years. The history of Heeswijk Castle goes back at least to the first half of the twelfth century, and possibly even further, to the end of the eleventh century. First, a motteburcht arose on this site, that is to say an artificially raised hill, 6 to 7 meters high, between 25 and 30 meters in diameter and surrounded by a moat. A tufa stone reinforcement was built on that hill, probably in the form of a tower.
In the fourteenth century that tower was no longer sufficient. Then, in stages, the construction of the brick late-medieval castle began, of which considerable parts are still standing today.
However, Heeswijk is not only interesting because of its long history. Hein Hundertmark, who investigated the building history of the castle, points out that from that fourteenth-century rebuilding until well into the nineteenth century, Heeswijk was always at the forefront of architectural architecture. The owners and builders constantly led the way in adapting the castle to changing circumstances.
This applies to the ambitious fourteenth and fifteenth century construction phases, whereby the castle was adapted to, among other things, the development of gunpowder guns. But also for the sixteenth and seventeenth-century conversion of a defensible castle into a representative noble residence. All things considered, it is no less true of the romantic dream that inspired Baron Van den Bogaerde of Terbrugge and his sons in the nineteenth century to neo-gothic extensions and additions, including the incorporation of all kinds of building fragments into the exterior facades. Heeswijk also set a trend in this neo-gothic adaptation.
Only after the Second World War was this line of progressiveness broken. For the last owner, the architectural legacy of his nineteenth-century ancestors was an annoying "romantic madness." He wanted the castle to return to a sober medieval aesthetic. It is therefore all the more spicy that the restoration of Heeswijk, which had to bring about this, ended in a castle with a predominantly eighteenth-century appearance.
Heeswijk Castle
In the course of the centuries so much has been built, demolished and carpeted at Heeswijk Castle that medieval builders today would have great difficulty recognizing their castle. Heeswijk may be a construction history jumble, it is still a large, imposing and beautifully situated complex that can rightfully be considered as one of the important medieval castles of North Brabant.
To begin with, there is the respectable age of perhaps around 950 years. The history of Heeswijk Castle goes back at least to the first half of the twelfth century, and possibly even further, to the end of the eleventh century. First, a motteburcht arose on this site, that is to say an artificially raised hill, 6 to 7 meters high, between 25 and 30 meters in diameter and surrounded by a moat. A tufa stone reinforcement was built on that hill, probably in the form of a tower.
In the fourteenth century that tower was no longer sufficient. Then, in stages, the construction of the brick late-medieval castle began, of which considerable parts are still standing today.
However, Heeswijk is not only interesting because of its long history. Hein Hundertmark, who investigated the building history of the castle, points out that from that fourteenth-century rebuilding until well into the nineteenth century, Heeswijk was always at the forefront of architectural architecture. The owners and builders constantly led the way in adapting the castle to changing circumstances.
This applies to the ambitious fourteenth and fifteenth century construction phases, whereby the castle was adapted to, among other things, the development of gunpowder guns. But also for the sixteenth and seventeenth-century conversion of a defensible castle into a representative noble residence. All things considered, it is no less true of the romantic dream that inspired Baron Van den Bogaerde of Terbrugge and his sons in the nineteenth century to neo-gothic extensions and additions, including the incorporation of all kinds of building fragments into the exterior facades. Heeswijk also set a trend in this neo-gothic adaptation.
Only after the Second World War was this line of progressiveness broken. For the last owner, the architectural legacy of his nineteenth-century ancestors was an annoying "romantic madness." He wanted the castle to return to a sober medieval aesthetic. It is therefore all the more spicy that the restoration of Heeswijk, which had to bring about this, ended in a castle with a predominantly eighteenth-century appearance.