Château d'Anvaing

Frasnes-lez-Anvaing, Belgium, Belgium

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The Château d’Anvaing in Frasnes-lez-Anvaing, Belgium, is a Renaissance-style water castle built in 1561 on the site of an earlier medieval fortification that had been in use since at least the 12th century, with some sources even mentioning a 1127 foundation.

The castle is architecturally symmetrical, with four corner towers (rebuilt in the 19th century) and was raised by an additional floor in the early 19th century to match contemporary tastes, while retaining its original medieval foundations and moat, now transformed into a large pond with an island. Historically, the site is most famous as the place where the Belgian army’s capitulation was signed on 28 May 1940, after the German 6th Army had established its headquarters there under General von Reichenau during the Battle of the Lys.

For over two centuries the château and its surrounding estate have belonged to the family of the Counts of Lannoy, who still live there, and the grounds are notable for both archaeological finds (including 1860 discoveries of Gaulish torques and gold coins now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art) and legends such as the “White Dame” guarding a treasure in the moat, which is narrated along a 6 km artistic walking path called the Sentier de l’Amour.