Our History

Limburg Haspengouw has a landscape of gently rolling hills, green pastures, fertile fields, orchards and patches of forest. The Prince-Bishop of Liège, Charles of Velbrück, chose this magnificent landscape to create an earthly paradise, an ‘Arcadia’ to the taste and philosophy of the 18th century. The hill stretching above the village was leveled into a large terrace, on which a hunting lodge was built, accompanied by formal or stylistic gardens. The remaining hills formed a suitable terrain to create a landscape park.

A princely estate unveiled
The art historian Chris de Maegd was the first to carry out an in-depth study of the history of Hex, the creation and development of the park and gardens – from their origins, through the flourishing and turbulent times of the 19th and 20th centuries, to the situation today. The account of her quest to uncover the estate’s history was published as a book in 2007, illustrated with beautiful original prints and photographs, and reads like a novel.

FROM VELBRÜCK TO D’URSEL
Castle Hex was built by the Prince-Bishop of Liège, Franz-Karl von Velbrück, between 1770 and the year of his death in 1784. Following his death, the estate passed by inheritance to the de Marchant d’Ansembourg family. When the last d’Ansembourg died childless, the estate was inherited by the d’Ursel family. The current residents are the second and third generations of the d’Ursel family at Hex. Count Ghislain and Countess Stéphanie d’Ursel still manage the estate in the spirit of its original builder.

An enlightened prince

Karel van Velbrück was born in 1719 at Garath Castle near Düsseldorf. His family belonged to the Westphalian nobility and his parents envisaged an ecclesiastical career for him. After studying law, Velbrück arrived in Liège as a young canon and fairly quickly held important positions in the administration of the principality. In 1772 he was elected prince-bishop. His policy was that of an enlightened monarch, won over to the ideas of freedom and tolerance. The arts, literature, sciences and education found in him a great promoter.

THE ESTATE
At the heart of the estate lies the castle, with its walled gardens and park. To the west of the castle, in the Broekom valley, lies the Manshoven tenant farm with its lush meadows and pastures, backed by the beautiful Manshoven Wood. To the east of the castle, in the middle of the fertile plateau, lies the Monnikkenhof farmstead with its extensive fields. A third farmstead is situated on the Hekslaan opposite the castle. Furthermore, the Hekslaan is home to a number of beautiful old houses in the rural style of the 19th century, such as the nuns’ convent and the old sawmill. Finally, the old watermill, situated further down in the village on the banks of the Herk, also forms part of the estate.

The walking route
Past Monnikkenhof, the watermill and Manshoven. 
Click here for the map of the walking route of 6 km, 9 km or 12 km.
Starting point at restaurant and bistro De Horne.

THE CASTLE
According to tradition, the castle was built according to the plans of the Liège architect Etienne Fayen. For its execution, Velbrück engaged the best craftsmen from Liège, Lorraine and Italy. The castle itself is a U-shaped structure in red brick with window frames in Namur limestone. It has a single upper floor, covered with a mansard roof. The restrained building's only ornamentation is a triangular pediment featuring the goddess of the hunt Diana in relief.

THE ORNAMENTAL GARDENS
Around 1780, during the construction of his castle, Velbrück had a number of formal ornamental gardens laid out in the immediate vicinity of his castle. At the front, which was then the south-eastern side, the entrance from the south, where Liège is located, was landscaped in the French style with flowerbeds on either side of the road. On the other side of the castle came the walled parterregardens and besides, on the slope opposite the village, the lower-lying utility gardens. Little is known about how the situation evolved during the next generation. In 1871, the garden and landscape architect Louis Fuchs redesigned the formal garden in the cour d'honneur. Fuchs was also responsible for the creation of the English landscape park with its large sightlines. The formal garden that had previously been laid out in various terraces and adorned with ornamental parterre patterns, flower beds with flowers, exotic eye-catchers and numerous vases, benches and rose arches, was levelled and greatly simplified. In 1913, the Brussels landscape architect Jules Janlet was commissioned by the then Count d’Ansembourg to redesign both the old formal garden, the princes' garden, and the front garden. He re-laid the formal garden, taking into account the existing longitudinal and transverse axes. The attention to straight lines, balanced proportions and the use of geometric figures such as the semi-arch are characteristic of Janlet’s style. Dating from his time are also the three broad terraces on the south-eastern side of the castle – then featuring colourful flowerbeds – and the geometric layout of the princes' courtyard as we know it today. The terraces were redesigned once more in 1992 according to a drawing by the Antwerp landscape architect Jacques Wirtz. The flowerbeds with annuals made way for a suitably sleek design of lawns, clipped yew blocks and areas of dolomite gravel.

THE KITCHEN GARDENS
The original terraced layout of the gardens at Hex Castle is best preserved in the kitchen gardens. The kitchen garden is completely walled in and lies on the slope, at a lower level than the castle and the formal gardens, in parallel terraces. In 1774, a row of village houses still stood here next to the Hekslaan, including the vicarage. The houses were demolished and the vicarage was rebuilt on the opposite side of the street. The work was completed around the year 1790. Since then, little has changed in the layout of the kitchen gardens. The high retaining wall on the north-eastern side is 250 metres long and is still used as a fruit wall. At the foot of the wall is the border, the so-called ‘collar’ of the garden. The central level is occupied by the beds of vegetables and flowers. The lowest level on the street side is, as in the past, an orchard where sheep also graze. There you will also find the old water well that used to supply the vegetable garden with water. In the north-western part of the garden are the greenhouses and nursery garden. The 18th-century vegetable cellar is hidden behind a little door in the retaining wall, in the eastern part of the garden, tucked away among the climbing roses.

THE LOST ENGLISH GARDENS
In the years before his death in 1784, Prince-Bishop Velbrück had a garden complex created outside the walls of the formal gardens based on a completely new concept. The so-called English gardens had only just come into fashion, and Velbrück was one of the first to work according to the new principles of these ‘natural’ or irregular gardens. The concept of his English Court at the time is still a far cry from what we know today as the English romantic garden style, but the break with the French-inspired Rococo tradition was significant. The gardens were laid out in a large rectangle, situated between the French garden and the Zavelberg, and surrounded by a hedge. Winding paths led the visitor through openings in the wooded areas from one garden room to another. The lawn edges were exaggeratedly curved and here and there stood solitary trees, low groups of woody plants (groves) with flowering plants and park structures. Not much of this English Court remains. Moreover, we do not even know to what extent the original plans were executed. But the tone was set; the English Court laid a cautious foundation for the large landscape park as we know it today.

THE LANDSCAPE PARK
In 1871, the German landscape designer Louis Fuchs, who had moved to Brussels, was commissioned by the then castle owner Alfred I d’Ansembourg to redesign the park and the castle's surroundings in the landscape style of that time. Over the next ten years, the old pine forests were felled, the topography was adjusted, new avenues were planted, and large lawns were laid out. Today, Fuchs's elongated valley, with its gently undulating character and its carefully chosen specimen trees and tree groups, is one of the estate's main attractions and a textbook example of a landscape park, furthermore preserved almost intact.