Fonteinhof

The former manor farm Fonteinhof is accessible via a linden avenue. The semi-closed complex includes a gate wing, a residential wing, a tenant's house and former stables and a cross barn. The farm grew out of a 17th-century core and evolved in the course of the 18th to 20th centuries into the current complex. History The Fonteinhof is a manor farm, which in essence can possibly be associated with the castle and/or the so-called laathof of Gothem, which is mentioned in literature. However, apart from the location of the property, no traces of a feudal structure have been preserved above ground. The buildings date back to the 17th century at the earliest, with several later modifications. The planning evolution can be deduced from various historical maps. The name of the farm is quite recent. The name does not appear in the cartographic sources or in the land register. On the cabinet map of the Ferraris (1771-1777) the property is depicted as a closed whole, completely surrounded by a moat and accessible via a lane, the whole surrounded by orchards. The southwestern flank of the estate is bordered by the Herkebeek and possibly a footpath along the stream. The pre-primitive cadastral plan (1809) gives a similar picture to the Ferraris map. The farm forms the centre of a square block with orchard plots and a strip of hay meadow along the Herkebeek, which has clearly been canalised. It became a rectilinear, double bed on either side of a footpath. A lane leads from the current Gotemstraat near the village church to the entrance of the complex and branches off along the moat to the northwest, where it connects to the road that runs along the orchard. The complex within the canal is semi-closed, with an open driveway on the village side and an open flank on the east side, where a garden can be situated. Behind the building, within the moat, there is meadow with a bakehouse. On the primitive land register (1840-1845) the domain shows hardly any changes. The 1844 register mentions Hendrik Gerardus Briers, a rentier in Hasselt, as the owner. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the property within the canal evolved to its current proportions. In 1853 a cadastral mutation was recorded with the construction of a gatehouse, adjoining the house on the right. In 1871, 1919 and 1937 the house was renovated, in 1885 the stable wing. The demolition of the barn in 1919 largely determined the current condition of the manor farm. In the same year, the northern warp was also narrowed. The canal around the complex was preserved, but is dry. In 1940, part of the old farm was used for the start of the fruit juice production of Looza. Between 2003 and 2010, the farm complex was restored and repurposed into a hotel, banquet hall and event complex. Description The complex, located south of the village centre of Gotem, consisted of buildings around a rectangular yard with a dung heap: a street wing with a central gatehouse, a residential part to the east and the tenant's house to the west. Commercial buildings bordered the three other sides of the yard. The east service wing separated the yard from a garden behind the residential area, which was an extension of the homestead. The whole was surrounded by a moat and surrounded by orchards in the wider area. The manor farm is connected to the village centre of Gotem and to the church of St. Nicholas and Dionysius in particular, via a monumental avenue, bordered by a double row of Dutch lime trees (Tilia europaea (x)). Gatehouse The brick gatehouse with a kinked slate wolf roof, which, according to the cadastral mutations, has covered an older open driveway since around 1853, shows several construction seams, in varying proportions to the flanking constructions. On the street side, the gate volume is slightly projected in relation to the flanking wings. A wider substructure is formed by a round-arched, limestone-framed doorway, enclosed within a rectangular frame of corner blocks. A narrower, anchored superstructure comprises a rectangular window in a checkered limestone frame on the two storeys, similar to the windows on the yard side of the residential section. On the yard side, the gate façade is in the same plane as the flanking wings and the façade is the same width up to roof level. The gate passage is basket-arched in a brick frame, with posts of limestone blocks. Here, too, the upper storeys have rectangular windows and a checkered limestone frame. The gatehouse is clearly an addition, which was adapted to the residential building in parallel with the renovations (see windows). In Building through the Centuries, a year stone 1729 or 1746 is mentioned in the basement (?) of the gatehouse. Residential wing The residential area to the east of the gatehouse is three-part on the street side. Firstly, a lower extension of three bays and one and a half storeys can be situated immediately in line with the gate under a gable roof with Flemish tiles, bordered on the left by a roof. Small windows illuminate two internal levels. Secondly, to the left of the extension is a shallower, but higher structure of two bays and two storeys on a raised ground floor. The volume is covered by a steep gable roof with Flemish tiles and is bordered on the left by a roof with wickerwork. The façade is open with rectangular windows between bluestone upper and lower lintels. Thirdly, the end, in line with the second construction but separated from it by a clear construction seam, consists of a relatively wide corner construction under a low hipped roof with Flemish tiles. This volume is blind except for a single arched window with a bluestone threshold. The free side façade is open with similar arched windows. This situation corresponds to the picture sketched by the pre-primitive land register with a succession of volumes, starting from the then still open passage, in a stylized, S-shaped constellation. Elements such as the steep roof slope and the lean-tos refer to an older, possibly 17th-century core, the windows were added progressively in the course of the 19th century. The wooden bay window with brick filling, which serves as a lock between the first and second building volumes, is an early 20th-century addition. The situation on the yard side differs greatly from the street side. Only two narrow bays are directly in line with the gatehouse, with windows set in flat bluestone mouldings. To the right of it is a two-storey extension with a semi-basement level and a strongly raised ground floor. The extension is two bays deep in relation to the gate parement and extends along the yard over a width of three bays, including a sloping connecting bay that compensates for a further difference in depth. The main wall openings are set in bluestone mouldings with checkered right teeth. As an extension of this extension, there is a further addition of five bays wide, one bay deep and two storeys high behind a platform. The façade is open with rectangular wall openings. During the redevelopment, a rectangular volume with façade-high glass sections was added to this façade. The modifications on the yard side are the result of 19th- and 20th-century (circa 1965) extensions. The archetype can still be deduced from the floor plan, which shows the logic of an organically grown whole. The evolution of the farm into a kind of delightful residence can also be seen in the park. The so-called tenant's house has six bays and one and a half storeys on the yard side under a gable roof with Flemish tiles. The building volume is separated from the right wing by a roof with wickerwork. The yard and exterior façade are anchored with several S-shaped and curled anchors, which may refer to a 17th-century construction phase. The façades are openwork with large rectangular windows on the first floor and small square windows on the second storey, all set in a limestone frame. Two doors provide access to the former tenant's house: one arched and one rectangular, flanked by two narrow windows. An older construction phase may also include a sealed limestone round-arched door on the outer façade. Several large wall openings in cement mouldings may have been later modifications, as is the wooden loading window on the yard side. The front part of the western (stable) wing, with the end façade in line with the street wing, was completely rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century, as a purely utilitarian construction. The rear part has a half-timbered frame with brick infills. The yard façade has been opened up for the new purpose as a banquet hall with façade-high glass sections. The roof truss has been preserved. The free-standing rear wing, a former transverse barn, is dated around 1914 above a central basket-arched gate with bluestone posts in a keystone. The building can be associated with the primitive fruit juice factory Looza. The façade is symmetrical with a low arched door on either side of the gate, flanked on both sides by a low arched window. Above the gate is an oculus, with sober but decorative rod division. At the same height as the oculus, above the closed arched windows are round-arched loading windows with wooden shutters. Within the basket-arched gate is a smaller rectangular doorway, surmounted by a rectangular window, flanked on both sides by round-arched niches. The parement is bordered by a brick frieze with a liquorice motif. The free-standing east wing included the pigsties but has been extensively renovated. The building separates the yard from the landscaped garden to the east and southeast of the complex. Yard and gardens The eastern service wing divides the area within the moat into a fully building-bordered yard to the west and a garden behind the extensive residential area to the east, on the site of the former vegetable garden. The yard was asphalted at the time of inventory (2001). To replace the former dung heap, a lawn was laid out, with four weeping willows (Salix sepulcralis (x) 'Chrysocoma') and cylindrical yews (Taxus baccata). Against the former barn grew four pollarded lime trees (Tilia). Since the restoration and repurposing, the yard has been cobbled with a central lawn and fountain basin bordered by boxwood hedges. The garden extends from the residential wing, along the eastern service wing, to a distance behind the barn, where six pollard willows (Salix) bordered the grounds. Its construction can be situated in the interwar period, as a result of renovations to the house. The garden, as an addition to an older gentleman's farm, was largely located outside the ramparts and consisted of a few trees and a fountain that fed the moat. The bank near the fountain was finished with rubble stones and remaining (supplied) boulders indicated the existence of a waterfall. Together with the rustic branch benches that were placed in the flower garden, these are indications of an older layout that belong to the 'rustic' period of the 19th century. In the course of the 20th century, the layout of the interwar garden was adapted and renewed when the complex was repurposed. At the time of the inventory in 2001, the garden was divided into three zones, corresponding to its triple function: ornamental, sports and games, utility. In the axis of the house is a flower garden with lawn at the back, to which a second lawn with swimming pool corresponds to the east and to the west, behind the barn, a vegetable and fruit garden. A few steps lead down from the tiled terrace of the house to the wide, freshly laid gravel garden path of the flower garden. It is bordered by the massif of shrubs separating the garden from the yard on the right and by shrubs and grass on the left. In this grass, which ends on a U-shaped flower bed, there is a small putto on a baroque pedestal. Opposite is a terrace in baked tiles near a garden house that serves as a covered seating area with a fireplace. At the back is a rectangular lawn with a narrow path in dolomite that runs along the perimeter, accompanied by low boxwood hedges, rose arches, plant strips and rose stands. Shrubs also act as a background here. The garden for sports and games consists of a spacious, shrub-surrounded lawn with the sunken swimming pool at the back. A tiled rim surrounds it, and a bead of pebble concrete protects the blue mosaic-tiled tub rim. The tub itself describes a rectangle with a recessed apse-shaped termination, respectively the deep and shallow bath, each of which is accessible via steps in the corner of the partition. The vegetable garden is behind the barn and the entrance from the yard is marked by an arch of half yew, half boxwood. There are also elderberry (Sambucus) and hazel (Corylus) growing and greenhouses." Protection file DL002260, Aspects of Gotem (S. Defresne & J. Gyselinck, 2003, digital file).DE MAEGD C. (ed.) 2007: Historical gardens and parks of Flanders, Inventory Limburg, Part 3: Alken, Borgloon, Heers, Kortessem, Wellen, M&L Cahier 15, Brussels, 103-105. PAUWELS D. & SCHLUSMANS F. 1999: Inventory of cultural heritage in Belgium. Architecture. Province of Limburg. Arrondissement of Tongeren, Canton of Borgloon, Building through the centuries in Flanders 14N4, Turnhout, 139-140. http://www.fonteinhof.be/nl/sfeer/sfeer/7 (accessed 2 April 2014).

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