Kasteel Van Schelderode

Belgium, Belgium

---

Kasteel Van Schelderode, more commonly known as Kasteel Schelderode or Kasteel Ten Dale, is a 19th‑century neo‑Gothic country house in the village of Schelderode, a submunicipality of Merelbeke‑Melle in East Flanders, Belgium.

It stands on the site of the former feudal domain of the lords of Rode (the “Land van Rode” in the County of Aalst), whose original medieval castle had disappeared by the 17th century, and was commissioned in 1864–1865 by Florimond Van de Poele, a close collaborator of the architect Jean‑Baptiste Bethune, who also designed the building himself.

The mansion is built in local brick with natural stone for dressings and ornamentation, derives its style from 15th‑century Bruges Gothic, and is characterized by sharply pointed gables, slender octagonal corner turret, Gothic window tracery, and interior neo‑Gothic elements, with religious reference points such as statues of Mary and Saint Anthony.

The estate consists of a rectangular forecourt closed by a neo‑Gothic service building with dwellings, coachhouse and related rooms, surrounded by a park laid out in landscape style on the steep slope of the Scheldt valley, with a serpentine lake, remarkable trees, and a high brick wall, and directly overlooking the Scheldt meadows (Scheldemeersen) that form part of the protected landscape of the Scheldevallei.