Château de Saint-Fontaine

Clavier, Liège, Belgium, Belgium

---

The Château de Saint‑Fontaine is a prominent cubic‑shaped manor house set on a hill above the small hamlet of Saint‑Fontaine (also called Centfontaine or Cint‑Fontaine), part of the commune of Clavier in Liège province, Belgium, overlooking the valley of the Ossogne and the hamlet itself.

The present building was erected around 1820–1830 by the Count Emile de Liedekerke on the site of an earlier medieval castle that had been burnt down; the new house is in a simple, almost Italianate brick style, with a central block of five bays and three storeys flanked by lower side wings, and it is crowned by a continuous terracotta balustrade on all four sides, with corner “pots‑à‑feu”.

The estate was originally a feudal lordship of the principality of Liège, with a justice court like nearby Pailhe, and over the centuries passed through several noble families, including the de Cent‑Fontaine, de Haultepenne, de Eynatten, de Lannoy, de Haultepenne, and finally the de Liedekerke family, who inherited it and then handed it to the Cornet d’Elzius family, to whom it belongs today.