Château de la Fenderie

Trooz, Belgium, Belgium

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La Fenderie is a historic castle and former ironworking site located on the right bank of the Vesdre River in Trooz, in Liège Province, Belgium.

The name refers to the original “fenderie,” an 17th-century water-powered workshop where metal bars were split into long rods for local nail- and gunsmiths, an activity that began around 1583–1585 and made the site a key part of the area’s metallurgical heritage.

The castle itself, built mainly in the 17th century and later protected as a listed monument and site in 1981, is a striking stone building with two high towers flanking a tall, narrow central façade with traditional Mosan cross-windows and anchor plates that mark the year 1651. It stands on a wooded slope overlooking the bief (artificial channel) of the Vesdre, which still feeds a hydraulic system that today includes a turbine for electricity production rather than the original waterwheel.

The broader Fenderie site, which includes the castle, the old industrial forge building known as the “Maka” (from the Walloon word for hammer), and surrounding grounds, has been rehabilitated as a cultural and tourist space used for exhibitions, hiking departures and leisure areas, and it serves as the starting point for several marked walks in the Trooz region.