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CHâTEAU DE MARIEMONT
2010-03-02
I live in the Netherlands and since my youth I am passionate about castles and palaces. I am especially interested in (almost) lost castles and houses.
This weekend I went to the south of Belgium to visit of these places: the ruins of the hunting palace of Mariemont near Morlanwelz. This palace was built in the 16th century by Queen Marie of Hungary and later rebuilt by prince Charles of Lorraine, governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands. It was depicted by Breughel en Denis van Alsloot in their paintings. In the 18th century it was called the second most beautiful palace the Emperor owned after Schoennbrunn in Vienna. Unfortunately, it was destroyed during the times of the French revolution. The park survived and houses nowadays a museum with art pieces of the classical antiquity and an arboretum. The ruins can be found in the rear of the park. No signs remembers about the place. It is complety overgrown by ivy and trees. It seems to be left to decay and to be forgotten. Around the ruins there is a temporarily fence, which already seems to be there for a long time. If one looks through the fences and tries to see through the wilderness, one notices that are many remains still there: remains of walls, stairs, vaults, etc. It is a pity that such a place with such a history is decaying (the ´Hampton Court´ of Belgium). Especially, when such good remains are still there.
Following my contact with the museum this is the reply I received:
Thank you for your mail and for the interest you have shown for the domain of Mariemont. It is indeed a very beautiful domain and we are well aware of the great historical value of the ruins of the castle of Charles of Lorraine. There has already been for three, four years a plan to restore the ruins. The first objective, by the Museum and the Walloon Region was to the remove the vegetation that destroys the ruins. But this is a very difficult operation and so far no company has yet been able to propose a solution. However, we hope to solve a part of the problem next year and so the fences may be reduced gradually and some parts of the ruins may be opened for the public.
In recent years the Museum has mainly worked on setting up the permanent collections and the park as a whole, but the problem of the ruins is also part of this plan. We are thus well aware of the need for a solution in order to prevent further decay of the ruins.
Netherlands
