Pierco Castle

This building testifies to the wealth of some villagers. This spacious country house was built in the years 1820-1830 by mayor and house doctor Pierre-Joseph Giroul in the hamlet of Walho on the southeastern edge of the village. There was a garden of almost 45 acres and an orchard of 93 ares. Rev. Hubert Pierco (1804-1876), parish priest of Grand-Hallet, owned it in the mid-19th century. Around 1850 it came into the hands of Jean Pierco (1825-1887). From the marriage of his son Jules Pierco to Victorine Beaudhuin there were two children: Jean and Joseph Pierco. Marthe Eyben married Jean Pierco (1874-1928) and was loved by everyone as Madame Pierco, because of her charity. His brother Joseph (1877-1949) was destined for a political career. First, he held the position of mayor of his native village from 1928 until his death. He was also quaestor of the Chamber and a lawyer at the Court of Appeal. Four mayors of Walshoutem thus inhabited this castle: Pierco Jean (1879-1887); Pierco Jules (1889-1893); Pierco Jean (1921-1928) and Pierco Joseph (1928-1941).

The current building, which has been rebuilt several times, still betrays its original form despite all the fierits: a double house of three bays and two storeys and a mezzanine, flanked by two low extensions of one bay each and which probably housed the service areas. The whole was covered with gable roofs. The building was separated from the street by a 15-metre-deep square of honour. Lambert-Hubert Pierco, pastor in nearby Grand-Hallet (Walloon Brabant) rebuilt the right extension around 1860 in a distillery with steam power, an industry that flourished in Haspengouw around 1850. In 1872, not long before his death, he sold it to his nephew Jean Pierco.

Jean Pierco had a 'pleasure garden' of 3 hectares 60 acres, which covered a large part of the space between the road to Weseren (the current Piercostraat) and the Bormanstraat. The square of honour in front of the 'castle' was now also demarcated on the left by a second transverse wing, registered as "remise de maître", something like a glorified coach house and certainly not intended for the farm carts.

In 1906, long before the Vandervelde law on the control of public drunkenness (1919), the distillery was discontinued. County councillor and mayor Jean Pierco, grandson of the former, gave the castle complex its current appearance in the 1920s. It was a historicizing modification, which was mainly limited to the façade and the interior: the entrance staircase was given a tower with a pointed tent roof, the bays were delineated by corner chains and checkered lisenes in white sandstone, the windows of the first floor were provided with triangular pediments and the central staircases of the extended extensions of pointed arch pediments. In the former distillery a 'salle flamande' was set up. In the enrichment of the interior, generous use was made of demolition material from an Antwerp mansion (panelling, chimneys and fireplaces, stained glass windows...). The renovation was led by the Brussels architect Closset, probably E. Closset.

The square of honour in front of the castle is delimited along the street side by a low wall, interrupted by the cobbled entrances and exits, which formed a roundabout. But, as evidenced by postcards from the 1920s and cadastral records, there was also an "overgarden." This was a 26-acre plot across the street with lawns, flower beds and a white stone column, possibly the pedestal of a sundial. The space behind the castle was connected by a 200 m long canal of high wood to a block of agricultural land in the corner of Bormanstraat and Walhostraat. That part was planted with trees and provided with a walking path. However, the link between the castle and this forest plant was recently broken by the subdivision of the Camille Lenaertstraat.

Park of the castle Pierco

There is a remnant of only 50 acres of the landscape park that was originally 3 hectares 60 acres in size. It was laid out in the 1870s. In the remaining part of the Pierco mansion there is a collection of park trees that go back to earlier construction phases of the park. The collection is dominated by six brown beech trees and is further supplemented with one winter lime (241 cm), two common maples (385 and 206 cm), one white horse chestnut (283 cm), one pedunculate oak (261 cm) and one beaver tree (206 cm). Remarkable in this collection is the appearance of three bundle trees of high-rising brown beech, of which one specimen with three trunks (393 cm) and two specimens with two trunks (380 and 289 cm). Two free-standing brown beech trees (489 cm and 366 cm) and one free-standing common maple (385 cm) have respectable trunk circumferences. In the bush layer of the park there are farmer's jasmine, aucuba, mahonia and snowberry.

Jan Rymenams