Antoine Castle

Antoine Castle, locally known as Château Antoine, lies in the town of Jemeppe-sur-Meuse, in the province of Liège in the Wallonia region in Belgium.

Antoine Castle was built between 1295 and 1298 by Antoine de Jemeppe. It originally consisted only of the rectangular keep, with two semicircular protruding stairwells on its short sides. At that time, it was surrounded by a moat.

In 1448, it was acquired by Alexandre Sandron. During the 16th century, it was owned and contested by several parties, including the De Reepen family. In 1617, Lambert de Reepen sold Antoine Castle to Baron Godefroid de Bocholtz, who rented it to a man named Fourneau. This Fourneau purchased the castle from the baron in 1627.

In 1650, Antoine Castle was owned by the Jesuits of Trèves, who then sold it to a Mr. Gaen. By then, the castle sat on a domain of about 37 acres, including parkland and orchards. Throughout the rest of the 17th century, the castle changed hands many times before finally returning to the Fourneau family.

In 1728, a Miss Fourneau and her husband, Laurent van der Heyden, owned Antoine Castle. They are credited with adding the U-shaped extension against the medieval keep.

Probably during the 19th or early 20th century, the domain where the castle stood disappeared entirely and was built over, so much so that it now sits on only a small field of grass within a densely built residential area.

When I visited Antoine Castle in 2015, it had already been abandoned for about 30 years and was walled off and boarded up. But in the early 2020s, it was completely restored and now serves as a neighborhood town hall. I hope to revisit this nice castle to take new pictures.

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