Castle domain Notax

Formerly "Goet" or "Hof te Notax", now "Kasteel Notax", colloquially also known as "Spookkasteel". Moat-encircled castle in the associated park with castle farm and access gate near the Ledebeek, in the northwest corner of the municipality. The site’s origins with moat date back to the early Middle Ages. The name "Notax" also points to this early medieval origin. Mention of the lords of Notax dates back to the early 13th century. This family certainly owned the court and fief in Destelbergen at the beginning of the 14th century. The lordship of Notax was a feudal estate of the Sint-Pieters Abbey with 58 sub-fiefs, its own bailiff, and court. The importance of the lords of Notax is also clear from the fact that since 1313 they had their own chapel built at the parish church of Destelbergen. After the abolition of the lordship in 1794, the castle was sold repeatedly. Access gate to the northwest of the moated castle at the end of the access drive, which, departing from Kwadenplasstraat, runs along the western castle moat northward to the Ledebeek in extension of the Zevensterrede. Double brick façade gate with two wide corbel arch-shaped passages, topped by a straight saddleback (Flemish tiles), probably from the early 17th century. Start stone of both arches in sandstone; some sandstone corner blocks at the left gate with an iron gate. Rear side reinforced by heavy buttresses. Access bridge directly opposite the castle over the shortest moat (to the north). Long and narrow brick bridge on four depressed arches and equipped with simple iron railings. Ending at two bricked and plastered square gate pillars. Currently a vaulted castle on a U-shaped floor plan with an octagonal stair tower in the northeast corner; situated in the middle of the moated courtyard with an enclosed pond in the northeast corner. The oldest representation of Kasteel Notax on a 1583 map shows a rectangular building surrounded in a square by a moat. 18th-century maps first show an L-shaped and later a U-shaped building. Precise data related to the construction history is lacking. Successive renovation, expansion, and modification works until the mid-20th century complicate the reading of the various construction phases from the masonry. A limited architectural investigation undertaken in 1986 in anticipation of restoration works allowed for a hypothetical construction chronology to be outlined. During excavation near the eastern corner of the garden façade (to the south), it was found that the brick cellar wall there rests on a plinth of Tournai stone with above it masonry of Balegem limestone: remnants or recovery of an initial masonry medieval building, a donjon or motte tower, and of a 15th-century construction, probably destroyed at the end of the 16th century by devastation during the religious wars. At the beginning of the 17th century, Notax is believed to have been rebuilt into a castle that typologically aligns with the modest castles from the first half of the 17th century: a main building with rectangular floor plan and side gable ends, an adjoining octagonal stair tower with a small right-angled annex against the main volume to access the upper floor. This original construction has been preserved in the eastern part of the current main wing and in the tower. Its floor plan is most clearly recognizable in the cellar floor. Two-part cellar with ribbed vaults and central wall with a corbel arch-shaped passage next to a recent curved opening. Furthermore, two different round columns as central support points, one sandstone and one gray hardstone (probably older recovery material that prompted the dating of the cellar to the Romanesque period in earlier descriptions). Wall with gothic profile of a fireplace against the western cellar and original outer wall. On the attic floor, the original roof truss with numbering also reflects the initial size of the main wing. A door provides access from the cellar to a corridor with barrel vault and the staircase in the tower that has been preserved in its original condition. Sandstone spiral staircase with ribbed vaults on the ground floor and on the L-shaped gallery of the upper floor. Two corbel arch doors in the corner of the corridor on the upper floor: one with chamfered profile and one in a recessed rectangular panel. The two upper levels of the tower staircase bear a wooden ceiling. The castle presumably also suffered damage from the French invasions in 1677. Subsequently, at the end of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century, the small tower annex (of which remnants are still present) was replaced by the current northeast wing: largely vaulted with a depressed vault and with two star vaults next to it in the corridor on the ground floor leading to the tower. Then the main building was extended to the west in the 18th century and the roofing changed to hipped roofs. A newspaper article from 1832 mentions Notax as "a beautiful and recently newly built dwelling..." which likely referred to global modification works with changes to windows and door openings. The small western transverse wing was added later in the 19th century, possibly as an adaptation of a service building that had already existed in the 18th century. In 1949, a final expansion followed against the western gable wall up to the moat. At the same time, the eastern façade was altered: equipped with a small terrace with door and window; a low corbel arch door as a new cellar door with recovered (?) sandstone day edges and façade stone inscribed: "MAPERTHUUS / 1349 1949". Refers to the legendary dwelling from the epic of the fox Reinaert which was sometimes located here in the vicinity. In the same vein, the barred rectangular cellar windows were provided with a series of colored stained glass windows with illustrations from the Reinaert legend signed by glass artist De Graeve and dated 1954. Whitwashed brick and sandstone castle of two floors under intersecting hipped roofs (Flemish tiles). Above the ridge of the roof rises the octagonal stair tower with an eight-sided slate spire. Facade with encircling gray-painted plinth. Plastered south façade (garden side) of ten bays with two registers of rectangular windows on hardstone sill, with 19th-century woodwork and shutters. Two lower windows modified into window doors with a shared staircase. Glazed round arch door with fan-shaped overlight set in a gray-painted and relatively flat rectangular frame under a straight cornice. Furthermore anchored facade with visible cut of the sandstone plinth. Traces of sandstone blocks replaced by brick surround the large rectangular windows, now in gray-painted frames. Four closed original window bays in the eastern façade with traces of relieving arches and sandstone sills. In the western façade of the eastern transverse wing next to the tower: high pointed arch door with truncated sandstone arch frame and three old arch stones, and moreover a renewed brick and sandstone, blocked frame. In the northern façade: low rectangular door with quarter-circle profile in a flat gray-painted rectangular frame with cornice. Stair tower of four divisions equipped with small rectangular windows with sandstone sills, the lowest with bars, the four upper at the same height and provided with rebates and thumbs. Two water arms on the third division. Low right-angled west wing of one floor under gable roof (Flemish tiles) with remnants of a pediment window on the southwest corner. Wide anchored forward façade with wall braiding, adapted openings with sandstone sills and traces of a blocked wide arch to the left. One sandstone cross window with barred overlight (recovery?) in the west façade. Two pointed arch former coach doors (?) in the other side façade.

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