Kasteel d’Aspremont - Lynden

Lanaken, Belgium, Belgium

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Kasteel d’Aspremont‑Lynden is a large, water‑castle in the historic core of Oud‑Rekem, part of the municipality of Lanaken in Belgian Limburg, built in the late 16th‑early 17th century in the homogeneous Maasland (Mosan) Renaissance style on the foundations of a 13th‑century medieval castle.

It was the residence of the noble family d’Aspremont‑Lynden, who from the 17th century ruled the Imperial County of Reckheim from this building, enjoying their own mint, toll rights and jurisdiction, and the castle together with the surrounding town walls and gates formed the political and symbolic centre of this small lordship.

After the French Revolution, the castle was seized and used as a military hospital for Austrian and then French troops around 1792–1805, and later served as a beggars’ asylum (1809–1891), a re‑education institution for boys (1891–1904), and from 1921 to 1980 as a state psychiatric hospital, before being taken over by the province of Limburg and the Belgian State and later restored by the private company NV Domein Reckheim, which focalised on saving and adapting the exterior and some of the interiors.