Kasteel Bleijenbeek

Afferden, Limburg, Netherlands, Netherlands

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Kasteel Bleijenbeek in Afferden, Limburg, Netherlands, first appears in records around 1405 as a moated farmstead with a residential tower owned by Derrick Schenck van Nydeggen, named after the nearby "blije beek" or clear stream dug for peatland drainage.

Expanded over three centuries by the Schenck family into a full medieval castle with a main building featuring kitchens, cellars, two upper floors, and slate-roofed attics, it endured heavy damage during the Eighty Years' War before 17th-century restoration, later passing to the Van Hoensbroeck family until the early 20th century.

Occupied by German paratroopers in 1945, it was bombed flat by British RAF typhoons on February 22 after fierce resistance stalled Allied advances, leaving ruins quarried for village rebuilding and now stabilized as a bat habitat within Limburgs Landschap's nature reserve.