Château Miranda

Front view (2009)

Château Miranda or Château de Noisy was a neo-Gothic castle near the town of Celles in the province of Namur in the Belgian Ardennes .

history

The Noisy farm, where the lords of the nearby Vêves Castle fled in 1792 when they were driven from their ancestral home in the course of the French Revolution , was once located on the grounds of what would later become the castle . Their descendants from the Liedekerke-Beaufort de Celles family took a liking to the location and had Miranda Castle built there from 1866. The English architect Edward Milner was commissioned to do this . He died in the course of the construction work, which was then continued by the French architect Pelchner. In 1903 the imposing, 56-meter-high clock tower was built before construction work was ended in 1907, despite further plans.

Rear view (2012)

From then on, the castle served as the summer residence of the Liedekerke-Beaufort family. During the Second World War it was occupied by German troops. After the war, the family lived in the right wing of the castle and rented the rest of the castle to the National Society of Belgian Railways (SNCB) as a holiday home for the children of railway employees. The SNCB terminated the lease in 1977 because of increased costs. Graf Liedekerke-Beaufort set up a foundation in 1978 so that the castle could continue to be used as a home, now primarily for school classes, and made it accessible to the public. In 1990 he looked in vain for investors to convert the castle into a hotel.

From 1991 the castle was abandoned; it began to deteriorate. In 1995 the roof structure burned, probably caused by young people who had entered. Count Liedekerke-Beaufort then had the still usable interior fittings such as chimneys, marble and parquet dismantled. In the following years, damage caused by vandalism and theft increased sharply. Parts of the castle collapsed; in 2010 and 2011 it burned again. The municipality of Houyet offered Count Liedekerke-Beaufort a purchase, but the latter declined. The castle was then removed from the list of monuments , which means that the owner was granted a demolition. These plans received critical comments in the Belgian media; an association for the preservation of the castle was founded.

Also due to its ailing condition, Château Miranda developed into the epitome of a haunted castle , which, in addition to adventure-oriented young people, especially attracted lovers of lost places and urban exploration . The owner had the castle guarded from time to time.

The demolition of the castle began on October 24, 2016. Shortly afterwards, a lawyer from Liege forced a stop because there were bats in the castle. The demolition began at the old clock tower, the object was secured with NATO wire . The castle was demolished from May 2017 to October 2017.

Others

In 2015, scenes for the television series Hannibal were filmed in the castle .
The American horror punk band Wednesday 13 sales merchandising , such as T-shirts, with the castle as a motive.