Inside of Chateau Noisy The Abandoned Gothic Castle

109

The Liedekerke-De Beaufort family, who had evacuated their previous home, Vêves Castle, during the French Revolution, tasked English architect Edward Milner with building the castle in 1866. Milner had been hired by the family to construct the castle. Regretfully, Milner did not live to see the castle finished. The clock tower was constructed in 1907, the year when the building was ultimately completed.

Their progeny persisted in the occupation until the Second World War. During the Battle of the Bulge, the castle was occupied by Nazi forces, and the location served as a staging ground for the fighting.

Miranda Castle was renamed “Chateau de Noisy” after it was taken over by the National Railway Company of Belgium in 1950 and used as both an orphanage and a vacation camp for sick children. It has been referred to by that name ever since. It functioned as a youth summer camp until the late 1970s.

The expenditures of preserving the castle were too great, and attempts to locate investors in the property failed, therefore it has been abandoned and in complete disrepair since 1991. The city of Celles made an offer to the family to acquire ownership of the massive structure, but they declined. This has led to the structure being in a state of decay and being vulnerable to vandalism and degradation as of the year 2015. Many areas of the building sustained major damage from the fire, and now substantial sections of the ceiling are starting to collapse.