Modave Castle

Modave stands on the edge of a limestone cliff sixty metres above the Hoyoux, rebuilt in the 1650s and 1660s by the Count of Marchin as a country house rather than a fortress, and the interiors are the point: about twenty rooms with stucco ceilings, tapestries, painted panels and period furniture, including a hall with an elaborate plaster ceiling showing the family tree. Its wider claim is technical: in 1667 Rennequin Sualem built a water wheel and pumping system here to raise water from the river sixty metres to the castle, and that installation was studied and used as the model for the Machine de Marly that supplied the fountains at Versailles. The park runs along the cliff and down to the river with marked walks.

History

The oldest part, the keep, stands on a rock high above the Hoyoux, built probably in the 13th century by the lords of Modave, and in the 16th century the estate passed to the Haultepenne and de Saint-Fontaine families. In the 17th century the commander Jean-Gaspard-Ferdinand de Marchin bought it and turned the medieval fortress into a luxurious Baroque residence; later owners included Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, Cardinal Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, Baron Arnold de Ville and the dukes of Montmorency, and in March 1941 the Brussels water company bought the estate to protect the springs in its park, and has restored the castle since (Wikipedia, Château de Modave).

What to look for

• Stucco ceilings and tapestries - about twenty furnished seventeenth-century rooms.
• The family tree ceiling - the plasterwork in the great hall.
• The Sualem pumping story - the wheel that inspired the Machine de Marly.
• The cliff and park - sixty metres above the Hoyoux with river walks.

When to go

April to October; it closes for the winter. Two to three hours with the park. Weekdays are quiet. Autumn colour in the valley below is good.

Before you go

It closes entirely for much of the winter. Interpretation is in French with limited English. The pumping installation itself no longer exists and is explained rather than shown. Public transport is poor.

Nearby

Huy is north on the Meuse; the Condroz runs south.

Key facts