Château Miranda: the fairy-tale castle of Noisy that no longer exists

Château Miranda, known in Belgium as Château de Noisy, was a Gothic Revival castle near Celles in the Walloon province of Namur. It stood empty from 1991 and fell into decay. Demolition began on 31 October 2016; by mid-November 2017 only the base of the clock tower was left.

At a glance

Château Miranda (Château de Noisy)

Location

Celles, municipality of Houyet, province of Namur, Belgium

Built

from 1866, clock tower 1903 to 1907

Architect / client

Attributed to Edward Milner; built for Count Hadelin de Liedekerke-Beaufort

Usage

Family seat; from about 1950 a home for children of Belgian railway staff, later school classes and holiday camps

Abandoned since

1991

Condition

Demolished from 31 October 2016 to November 2017

Visited

May 2009 and March 2010

Series

OVER AND DONE

May 2009: a walk through the forest

Noisy was the first great abandoned castle I photographed. In those days, even before Italy, Belgium was my second living room. I had little money and limited means, and yet so much lay just across the border.

I will not forget that first visit in May 2009. After a long walk through the Walloon forests this mighty castle, a sleeping beauty, suddenly stepped out of nowhere with its imposing clock tower, and I had goosebumps all over. The moment is beyond describing, and unforgettable.

In March 2010 I went back once more; the trees in the park were bare.

Where was Château de Noisy?

The castle stood near Celles, a village in the municipality of Houyet in the arrondissement of Dinant. The area belongs to the Condroz, though it is often counted as part of the Ardennes. Noisy lay on a rise in the forest, opposite Vêves Castle, the old seat of the same family. Below Vêves runs a stream called the Mirande.

According to one explanation, that is where the second name comes from. Another traces it to the company that owned the castle and estate, the SA Miranda. In Belgium the press and local people say Château de Noisy; the Walloon heritage inventory of 1996 lists the building as “Château de Noisy ou de la Miranda”. Internationally it became known as Château Miranda.

A castle for the Counts of Liedekerke-Beaufort

Noisy began as a farm. When Vêves Castle was ravaged in the years of the French Revolution, the family moved there. From 1866 Count Hadelin de Liedekerke-Beaufort (1816 to 1890) had a new castle built on the site. Vêves, the newspaper L’Avenir reports, no longer offered the comfort of the age.

The design is attributed to the Englishman Edward Milner, who was known above all as a garden designer. There is no proof of it: in 2014 the art historian Philippe Farcy pointed out in La Libre that everyone repeats the name without anyone having produced a source from the archives. Milner died in 1884, and work then stopped for more than ten years. From 1903 to 1907 the central clock tower was added, the work of a little-known French architect.

The style mixes Gothic Revival, neo-Tudor and Scots Baronial. The house is said to have had more than a hundred rooms. Around 1900, a Houyet alderman told L’Avenir, forty gardeners raked the gravel paths every morning.

The blue hall

Of the interior, the heritage inventory mentions a grandiose entrance hall with a grand staircase of blue Italian marble. My pictures show that hall as it was in 2009. Pointed arches on slender columns carry a rib vault, the ribs white, the cells between them a strong blue from which the paint hangs down in pieces the size of a hand. The staircase climbs behind an arch; rubble and broken stone lie on the steps and the floor. Through a traceried window in the wall you look into the next room, turquoise and blue as well.

Higher up the vault had already broken open, and brick showed from under the plaster. On one wall, beneath a twin column, sits a small stone figure, a crouching man with a beard and a cap.

The railway workers’ children

Around 1950 the castle became a home. The Belgian state railway SNCB housed children of its staff here, and the house was now called the “Home de Noisy”. In the 1950s it was a school centre; later there were holiday camps. How long the railway stayed is given differently from source to source; the broadcaster RTBF speaks of more than twenty years.

In the 1980s the owner ran the house himself, for school classes in the countryside and holiday camps, by his own account from 1980 to 1987. In 1991 it was closed after a fire. When demolition loomed, former pupils met again at a rally in January 2014, among them a couple who had met at Noisy.

Why was Château Miranda demolished?

After 1991 no new use was found. Until the early 2000s there were talks about a hotel and a conference centre, the owner, Count Hadelin de Liedekerke-Beaufort, told the regional broadcaster Matélé in 2014. They failed: the family offered a long lease, the investors wanted to buy. The castle decayed, and dry rot spread.

On 30 December 2013 an application for demolition was filed. The owner gave safety as his reason. More and more people were coming onto the estate unannounced, and he did not want to be responsible for an accident. The mayor of Houyet put the cost of securing and repairing the building at ten million euros at least.

A petition against the demolition gathered around 8,000 signatures. In February 2014 the castle was placed on the safeguard list of Walloon heritage for one year, so that the administration could examine whether to list it. On 30 September 2014 the minister responsible decided against. An expert report had put the restoration at 20 to 25 million euros and judged the historical interest insufficient. On 23 July 2015 the municipality issued the demolition permit.

A year of demolition

Work began on 31 October 2016. A crane lifted off the spires, and by mid-November the site was quiet again. Two local residents went to the Belgian Council of State, without success. In mid-May 2017 the demolition resumed, on 8 June a judge in Dinant stopped it, and in July the court of appeal in Liège lifted that stop. In early August fire broke out in the ruin.

On 9 November 2017, the newspaper DH reported, only the central tower was still standing before a mountain of rubble. On 15 November RTBF announced that the castle of Noisy no longer existed. What remained was the base of the main tower.

Many of my early pictures no longer meet the standard I set myself today. What might I have drawn out of the place with the skills I have now?

More about my beginnings in Belgium is in the story Belgium: Collieries, châteaux and time capsules next door.

The pictures

The pictures were taken on 22 May 2009 and 19 March 2010.