Kasteel Vilain XIIII

Wetteren, Belgium, Belgium

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Kasteel Vilain XIIII is a neoclassical country castle in the municipality of Wetteren in East Flanders, Belgium, built in 1822 on the orders of Charles Hippolyte Vilain XIIII, who was the long‑serving mayor of Wetteren from 1822 to 1873 and held the title of count (burggraaf) of the noble family Vilain XIIII.

The castle and its prestigious garden were designed by Adriaan Maenhout, secretary of the municipality, in a sober neoclassical style that is clearly visible in the strong horizontal lines of the façade, emphasized window sills and cordons, and the overall symmetry of the main block, with later extensions in 1849 by architect Louis Minard adding side wings and a third storey while keeping the same architectural language.

After the count’s death in 1873, his second wife Leontine Ghilaine de Wal continued to live there until 1901, when the estate was sold to the Apostoline Sisters of Saint Joseph and later to the Dames du Sacré‑Cœur, who used the castle and its grounds as a boarding school and household school, adding a pensionnat wing around 1919 and more buildings in 1935–1938, and converting the old ice house of 1898 into a Lourdes grotto around 1950.

The castle stands in a large estate of about 10 hectares, with the original rear façade facing the park and the present front façade originally the garden side, while inside the main floor still contains the historic white, red, green and black salons; today the building is a protected monument, partly used by the Apostoline Sisters, and occasionally hosts local exhibitions and cultural events, offering visitors a well‑preserved example of an early‑19th‑century Vilain XIIII family residence and its associated landscape in the heart of Wetteren.