Kasteel Boekenberg

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The manor house of the settlement, which was built up to at least the first half of the 16th century, with a watered-down house of plaisantie, farm, grounds and appurtenances, was rebuilt in Rococo style between 1751 and 1755 by order of Maria Theresia Carolina Knyff, widow J.C. Bosschaert and J.J. du Bois, see memorial stone next to main entrance; the design is rightly attributed to J.P. Van Baurscheit de Jonge, who may have also advised the owner on the construction of hiking trails, fishing ponds and tree parks; From this period date, among other things, a pentagonal ornamental garden and mirror pond with amphitheater south of the castle. In 1798 the "newly built court of plaisantie with all the buildings, lands, avenues, plantations, land and all the appurtenances" was purchased by J.W. Smets, banker and merchant on China and Japan. To the east of the existing gardens he created a romantic park with serpentine pond, artificial hills, a complex with subterranean cave, rock bridge and tower ruin, groups of statues, and so on; probably between 1800 and 1802, he also had the five-tiered Chinese pagoda built to a design by J. Kaulman, which functioned as a hinge between the old geometric gardens and the new romantic ones; except for the sculpture groups and the Chinese tower (the wooden superstructure was demolished in 1955, the stone substructure was preserved in situ), all these elements are still present. In 1859, Catharina Regina Maria della Faillle, wife C. Van Havre, was commissioned to transform the geometric gardens from the first phase, designed by Eduard Keilig, into a landscape style, connecting the ponds and the moat, among other things, with a beautiful cast iron bridge built and many exotic crops planted; this intervention is also still clearly recognizable; due to the addition of the country estates Lanteernhof and Ravelsberg and the farmsteads Langenhof and Menegemlaar, the total surface area of ​​the domain already amounted to approximately 30 hectares, which were transferred in 1911 by the last owner P. Cogels to the real estate company F. Toen. After a lot of hassle, the municipality bought the middle part - approximately 10 hectares - of the park in 1914; the rest was parceled out. It was not until 1926 that the park was opened to the public; the former mirror pond was converted into an open-air swimming pool in 1934. The castle was given various uses until it became the property of the current O.C.M.W. in 1956.