Castle - Provincial Domain Chevetogne

A bourgeois past
This aristocratic castle was built in 1868 by architect Henri Beyaert for Baron Jacques de Wykerslooth de Royesteyn.

One of its illustrious owners, Baroness Maria de Villegas de Saint-Pierre, made history through her charismatic figure as a "modern" woman, humanist and committed scholar. She turned the Château de Chevetogne into a field hospital in 1914 before joining the Queen at the Yser and setting up a hospital herself in Poperinge.

The last private owner was Mr Valéry Cousin, director of several companies. His wife, Alice Wielemans, belonged to the large family of the Brussels Wielemans-Ceuppens brewers. In 1969, after the death of Mr Cousin, the Province of Namur bought the domain of more than 453 hectares in order to open it up to social tourism.

Since 1969, a large public park.
The exploratory choices made since 1969 for the development of the Domaine de Chevetogne have not always been unanimous. Proponents of a harsh ecology and defenders of mass tourism have often clashed. In just a few years, the differing views on how to approach nature have changed significantly. Not a day goes by without some site mobilizing around the debate about the "integrity of the set", militants of a wild nature and moderate supporters of minimal interventionism.

The option that predominated at the time of the purchase of the estate of a "soft" tourism - nature, playgrounds, education, conviviality, family - has for forty years brought together all the political families... who rightly claim the general work done, which is considered "the" most important park in the country.

The necessary "steadfastness" required in the management of a park is, of course, difficult to reconcile with the "political" timetables that we know at home, but the provincial council, by working on a "five-year plan", through the landscape master plan, has last fifteen years (2016) to the landscape architect Benoît Fondu, demonstrating his willingness to act in the long term and to prefer "continuity".

Willem Vandenameele