Castle Ravenhof

Torhout, Belgium, Belgium

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Ravenhof Castle (Kasteel Ravenhof) is a historic castle in the centre of Torhout, West Flanders, Belgium, surrounded by a two-hectare public park and now used as the city’s tourist information office and a small museum.

The site is thought to have originated in the 13th–15th centuries as a walled manor with upper and lower courtyards, and the present building was constructed in the 16th century on the foundations of that earlier structure. Over the centuries it was home to important families such as the Decuypere, who controlled Torhout’s cloth trade in the 17th century, and the de Potter family in the 18th century, and from the 19th century to the early 20th century it was the residence of the Flemish poet Eugeen Van Oye, for whom the priest-poet Guido Gezelle wrote his famous poem “Dien avond en die roose” in 1858.

The castle’s interior was largely redecorated just before the First World War by shoe manufacturer Oscar Hostyn in a Louis XVI style, and later, after the building had fallen into disrepair, the municipality of Torhout bought it in 1989, restored it between 1993 and 1994, and adapted it for public use. Today the ground floor houses the tourist information point, while the upper floor contains the Museum of Torhout Pottery, which displays the town’s flourishing ceramics production in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and both the castle and the landscaped park with exotic trees and water features are freely accessible to visitors.