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Château Bilquin de Cartier

Worth visiting

Added on 01 Apr 2015,

last edited by »biroto-Redaktion« on 01 Apr 2015

Nearby cycle routes and tours

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EuroVelo: Pilgrimʹs Route

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Type of sights

Castle/palace

 

Name and address

Château Bilquin de Cartier

Place John Kennedy 1

BE-6030 Charleroi

GEO-data

Geodetic coordinates

50.406717 4.393800

Elevation

96 m

Communication

Château Bilquin-de Cartie, Marchienne-au-Pont
Château Bilquin-de Cartie, Marchienne-au-Pont
Château Bilquin-de Cartie, Marchienne-au-Pont
Château Bilquin-de Cartie, Marchienne-au-Pont

Cartier Castle (French: Château Bilquin de Cartier) is a château in Marchienne-au-Pont Wikipedia Icon, a part of Charleroi Wikipedia Icon, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium.

Origins of the château can be traced back to the 17th century, around 1635, when the Honoré family builds a castle on the Sambre Wikipedia Icon river bank. The place had formerly been occupied by a seigneurial manor which was dertroyed on 21 July 1554.

In 1667, the unfinished Spanish fortress of Charleroy is captured by Louis XIV's troops during the War of Devolution. As the castle in Marchienne was located in neutral territory (under authority of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège), it was used as a hospital for both French and Spanish soldiers.

In 1695, the castle is bought by Guillaume de Bilquin, a wealthy forge Wikipedia Icon owner, who completes and enhances it. In 1717, his daughter, Marie-Agnès Bilquin, marries Jean-Louis Cartier, son of the general treasurer of the prince-bishop of Liège. As such, the castle becomes the property of the Cartier de Marchienne family.

In 1740, the castle hosts Remacle Le Loup, a famous draftsman from the Liège Wikipedia Icon region. It is severely damaged by a fire in 1932, and bought over by the municipality of Marchienne-au-Pont in 1938, ending more than two centuries of ownership by the Cartier family.

Marguerite Yourcenar, a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, and the first woman elected to the Académie française, is the daughter of Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne, from the Cartier family related to the Cartier castle. She visited the castle in Marchienne-au-Pont in 1956, and mentions her Cartier de Marchienne ancestry and the castle in her 1974 memoir Dear Departed: A Memoir (French: Souvenirs pieux).

Current condition

The castle today hosts a public library on the ground floor (Bibliothèque Marguerite Yourcenar), and administrative services of the Walloon region on the first floor. The library has a section dedicated to books in Turkish language.

The courtyard is equipped with benches and is publicly accessible as part of the Marchienne-au-Pont municipal park. The castle wing which was located on the southern side of the courtyard has been demolished to create an entrance for the De Cartier station of the Charleroi metro. At the tip of the western wing, a stone porch is adorned with the arms of the Bilquin-Baillencourt family, and a 1699 date inscription. Similarly, the lintel above the northern wing door shows a scalloped key with the arms of the Cartier family. Other demolished features include a barnyard where the Marchienne-au-Pont municipal swimming pool now stands.

A 19th century grain elevator in neo-renaissance style can be seen on the Sambre embankment.

Information about copyright

Rights characteristic / license

by-sa: CREATIVE COMMONS Attribution-ShareAlike

Link to the description of the license

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Input taken over from:

Wikipedia contributors, 'Château Bilquin de Cartier', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 October 2014, 08:53 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ch%C3%A2teau_Bilquin_de_Cartier&oldid=631037667> [accessed 1 April 2015]

taken over / edited on

01 Apr 2015

taken over / edited by

biroto-Redaktion

Nearby cycle routes and tours

Route nameTypeDist. to route

EuroVelo: Pilgrimʹs Route

Route

0,1 km

Ravel 1

Route

4,6 km

Saint Malo - Cologne

Tour

0,1 km

Pilgrims-Route EV3 Bayonne - Cologne

Tour

0,1 km

Paris - Cologne

Tour

0,1 km

Added on 01 Apr 2015,

last edited by »biroto-Redaktion« on 01 Apr 2015