Het Vrieselhof

Ranst, Belgium, Belgium

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Het Vrieselhof is a large provincial park and estate in Oelegem, a village in the commune of Ranst in the province of Antwerp, Belgium.

The heart of the site is a neo–Flemish Renaissance castle set in an 80-hectare wooded park that was originally developed in the early 14th century when the local nobleman Jan van Vriesele bought land here and by the mid-15th century had a manor converted into a proper “hof”, or castle. The estate changed hands several times, later becoming a favoured “Hof van Plaisance” (pleasure ground) for Antwerp society, before being bought in 1910 by Count Louis de Brouckhoven de Bergeyck, who had the castle rebuilt after it was deliberately burned down in 1914 during the First World War.

In 1974 the castle and grounds were sold to the province of Antwerp and opened to the public in 1975 as a provincial green estate, with the building once housing the provincial textile museum and later the province’s fashion museum before those moved to Antwerp. Today Het Vrieselhof is a popular destination for walking, with several marked routes through varied landscapes including wet “rabatten” forestry, old bomb pits from the Second World War, and interwar military trenches, as well as a children’s play forest and a visitors’ centre that explains the history and nature of the area.

The castle still serves civic functions, notably as a venue for municipal council meetings and wedding ceremonies, while the surrounding park and nearby Fort van Oelegem form an important refuge for nature, including rare plants and overwintering bats.