Belgium · 11th century
Trazegnies Castle ranks #5,719 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #79 of the 128 mapped in Belgium. Founded c. 1050, it is older than 89% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 439 atlas entries founded in the 11th century. 11 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is La Louvière, 10 km away. See how Belgium compares in the castle statistics.
Trazegnies Castle (French: Château de Trazegnies) is a castle located in Trazegnies, Courcelles in the Belgian province of Hainaut.
Trazegnies was originally a powerful independent seigneurie on the edges of the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Hainaut and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and was ruled by a separate dynasty. The original castle was built by Gilles I in the 11th century but was almost completely destroyed in 1554 by the armies of Henry II of France during the Italian War of 1551–1559. Subsequently rebuilt, a corps de logis was added to the castle by Gillion-Othon de Trazegnies in the Louis XIII style in the 17th century.
The extinction of the Trazegnies dynasty led to the sale of the castle to a coal mine which partitioned off its land, leaving the castle itself to the Belgian state. It had become derelict by 1926 and suffered severe damage from subsidence as a result of underground mining. However, a civic association called the "Friends of Trazegnies Castle" (Les Amis du Château de Trazegnies) successfully opposed its destruction and began a gradual programme of restoration with the support of the Walloon Region. The castle is currently open to the public on designated days.
Text adapted from “Trazegnies Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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