Château de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne

Rochefort, Belgium, Belgium

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Château de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne is one of Wallonia’s most famous castles, a large 15th-century fortified residence in the village of Lavaux-Sainte-Anne, near Rochefort in the province of Namur, Belgium, now owned by the Walloon community and open to the public as a historic monument and museum.

Its origins go back to a simple watchtower built in 1244 by Jacques de Wellin de la Vaux to monitor the Roman road, but the current castle was commissioned in 1450 by Jean II de Berlo and expanded with three great towers linked by curtain walls, with a fourth tower added around 1500 and moats and defensive ditches enhancing its military strength.

In 1630 the castle was bought by Baron Jacques-Renard de Rouveroy, who, because modern warfare had made the old fortifications obsolete, transformed it into a country mansion by removing one curtain wall, opening up the courtyard, and giving the building a red-brick Renaissance veneer decorated with pilasters, shell motifs and onion-shaped domes on the round corner towers, giving it the elegant, open appearance seen today.

After being damaged by local revolutionaries in 1796 and later falling into disrepair, the estate was donated in 1933 to the non-profit association Les Amis du Château de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne, which has financed successive restorations; today visitors can tour its 32 rooms, explore three museums on hunting, seigneurial life and natural history, and walk through the surrounding wetland area with ponds and marshes that illustrate the typical Famenne landscape.