Nowadays, it is a northern section of that municipality, and a predominantly industrial zone, especially known for the Queen Astrid Military Hospital, which is the National Burns and Poisons Centre.

[5] In 1921, the former Brabantian municipalities of Haren, Laken and Neder-Over-Heembeek were annexed by the City of Brussels, tripling the size of the Belgian capital to its present-day extent.

[6][7] Nowadays, as a part of the City of Brussels, "Heembeek" is frequently used to name various civil and commercial services located in that area (such as transportation stops, or a school), ignoring the historic distinction of parishes.

His son Mercurius, a close friend, tutor and collaborator of Leibniz, records that one evening, a stranger knocked at the door and was admitted.

The two men talked late into the night about alchemy, and on leaving, the stranger left van Helmont with some unusual powder.

There are some suggestions that this visitor may have been a researcher who had had a significant hand in events leading up to the execution of the Counts of Egmont and Horn for heresy in 1568.

[8] In 1843, the same farm became the residence of Count Gioacchino Pecci, the Papal Nuncio, who showed a more than passing interest in searching the place from top to bottom.