Bokrijk Open-Air Museum

Bokrijk was founded in 1953 and holds well over a hundred buildings moved from across Flanders and reassembled in themed areas: Kempen farms, a Haspengouw village, an East Flanders group, a nineteenth-century town street, along with mills, a chapel, a brewery, a school and workshops, set in a large domain of woodland and heath. Staff in period dress work the buildings, keeping livestock, baking, brewing, blacksmithing and farming with old methods, and there is an active programme of craft demonstration and experimental heritage work. The wider domain includes an arboretum, a play area, cycling routes and the Cycling Through the Trees installation. It is the standard Flemish family day out and school trip.

History

On 9 March 1252 Arnold IV, Count of Loon, sold a forest called Buscurake, beech land, to the Cistercian abbey of Herkenrode, which made it an abbey farm with fish ponds and forestry, worked by lay brothers and from 1447 by tenants. French revolutionaries seized and sold it in 1797, and after decades of neglect the Maris-Vanhese family began a neo-classical castle in 1890, finished by Count de Meeus, who bought the estate in 1896; in 1919 the Belgian state took it over (Wikipedia, Bokrijk).

The main sights

• Over a hundred relocated buildings - farms, mills and a town street.
• Staff working the buildings - baking, brewing and blacksmithing in period.
• Old livestock breeds - kept and worked as they were.
• The wider domain - arboretum, woodland and cycling installations.

When to go

April to September, when the museum is fully staffed; the domain and cycling routes are open year round. A full day. Flemish school holidays are busiest. It is largely outdoors, so weather matters.

What to expect

The open-air museum is seasonal and closed for much of the winter. It is aimed at families and school groups. There is a lot of walking across a large site. Ticket prices are high. Interpretation is largely in Dutch.

Nearby

Cycling Through the Water is within the domain; Genk and the Hoge Kempen lie east.

Key facts