Netherlands · 14th century
Binckhorst Castle is a 16th and 17th century manor built on top of a demolished medieval castle.
Binckhorst Castle is located in The Hague city quarter of the same name. It used to be part of the now former Voorburg municipality till 1907. The road called Binckhorstlaan might be the successor of a Roman road connected to Forum Hadriani.
In 1344 the canal 'Haagse Trekvliet' was dug from The Hague city moats to the Vliet, which runs between Leiden and Delft. The castle thus became very important for the economy of The Hague, because it could stop traffic on the canal.
The current castle was built on top of a medieval castle. It is actually a manor which was restored in the 1930s. This restoration was necessary because of problems with the foundation. It involved the creation of a new foundation, and rebuilding most of the walls. It makes that most of the current Binckhorst Castle is a reconstruction.
In 1936 and 1937 archaeological excavations took place at the site, probably in relation to making new foundations for the castle. It revealed a medieval floor plan that was somewhat over twice the size of the current castle. Its size, defensive capability, and irregular square form suggest a castle that had organically grown before square castles with protruding towers, like Muiden Castle became the norm in about 1285.
The current manor still stands on a low hill surrounded by a moat. The round form seems typical for older castles. In a 1619 overview of Jacob II's accounts there is a reference to paying a mason for repairing the hill on which the house stood.
Current knowledge about Binckhorst Castle still heavily relies on the work that Jaap Renaud did in the 1930s. When he investigated the building at that time, his first conclusion was that there was nothing medieval about the building as it stood. For Binckhorst to be a medieval building, the format of its bricks was too small, and the walls were too thin.
Renaud investigated a map of the end of the Siege of Leiden. It depicts Binckhorst Castle as a simple construction consisting of a small house and a stair tower. He concluded this was not a depiction of the medieval situation, which would be proven correct in subsequent excavations, but the predecessor of the core of the current building. He also consulted a 1611 map by Floris Balthasar.
Text adapted from “Binckhorst Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Binckhorst Castle ranks #7,678 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #132 of the 199 mapped in Netherlands. Founded 1308, it is older than 60% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. 18 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is The Hague, 2 km away. See how Netherlands compares in the castle statistics.
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