Kasteel Reesinghe

Maldegem, Belgium, Belgium

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Kasteel Reesinghe is a historic estate in Maldegem, East Flanders, that sits on the site of the former feudal castle of the lords of Maldegem, a medieval noble family whose seat was destroyed and whose ruins were largely cleared in the 19th century.

The present building is a neo‑Gothic brick country house with the appearance of a hunting lodge, erected in 1858 by architect Eugène Carpentier for Charles‑Honoré Pecsteen, who had been granted noble status in 1822, and it replaced the old Renaissance castle whose ruins had fallen into decay by the 1800s.

The estate remains a coherent 19th‑century landscape of about 17 hectares, including a park, warandebos (a mixed forest of beech, oak and pine laid out in radial rows), wooded dreven (tree‑lined avenues), a small chapel built shortly after the castle, and the remnants of the earlier medieval site: a grassy hillock surrounded by a half‑circular ditch and bank that echoes the original multi‑walled castle complex shown on the 1770s Ferraris map.

Internally and externally the neo‑Gothic manor preserves late‑19th‑century character, while the surrounding park still contains old features such as the so‑called “donkere put” (a dark well or ice‑keller) and the remnants of two centuries‑old linden trees that once flanked the approach to the castle. The estate was long owned by the family Rotsart de Hertaing for about 150 years and today is partly managed as public green space and nature area, with part of the domain (Reesinghebos) held by the municipality and the Forest Agency and known for its beech and pine stands and associated birds, though it has also been the focus of local debates about possible development and protection of its open and parkland areas.