Royal Château of Ardenne

On 21 March 1837, King Leopold I bought 708 hectares (1,750 acres) of land called "Terre d'Hardenne et de Férage".

In the same period, the king also started the construction of a country house a few kilometers away: the Royal Castle of Ciergnon.

After the enthronement, King Leopold II had his father's manor demolished in 1874 to make way for the new Royal Château of Ardenne.

After the liberation, the domain was the command post of the American Fifteenth Army, which, however, evacuated it during the Battle of the Bulge.

The Elleboudt-Lemineur couple kept it open for another four years after the war, but the market for luxury tourism from France and England appeared to have dried up.

The château itself stood empty all this time and burned down in 1968 while roofing was being carried out on behalf of the Royal Trust.

The garden sculptures were transferred to the Park of Laeken in Brussels (including Thomas Vinçotte's Seahorses) and the ruins were cleared in the 1970s.