Vinderhoute is a village in the municipality of

Lievegem Lievegem () is a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders that arose on 1 January 2019 from the merging of the municipalities of Waarschoot, Lovendegem and Zomergem. The merged municipality has an area of 80.78 km² and is home ...

in the province of

East Flanders , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of Oost-Vlaanderen.svg , flag_size = , image_shield = Wapen van O ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. It is located in the Flemish Valley about north-west of

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

History

Vinderhoute is located in the on the left bank of the and is surrounded by waterways. A settlement has been discovered from the early

La Tène culture The La Tène culture (; ) was a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any defini ...

near Vinderhoute. The village was first mentioned in 966 as containing a church and farm belonging to the

Saint Bavo's Abbey Saint Bavo's Abbey ( nl, Sint-Baafsabdij) is a former abbey in the currently Belgian city of Ghent. It was founded in the 7th century by Saint Amand, who also founded Saint Peter's Abbey, Ghent, near the confluence of the Leie and Scheldt rivers. ...

. The ''

heerlijkheid A ''heerlijkheid'' (a Dutch word; pl. ''heerlijkheden''; also called ''heerschap''; Latin: ''Dominium'') was a landed estate that served as the lowest administrative and judicial unit in rural areas in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries before 1800. ...

'' Vinderhoute was one of the oldest

fief A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an Lord, overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a for ...

s of the

County of Flanders The County of Flanders was a historic territory in the Low Countries. From 862 onwards, the counts of Flanders were among the original twelve peers of the Kingdom of France. For centuries, their estates around the cities of Ghent, Bruges and Ypr ...

. Vinderhoute was an independent municipality until 1977 when it was merged into Lovendegem. In 2019, it became a ''

deelgemeente A deelgemeente (, literally ''part-municipality'') or section ( French) is a subdivision of a municipality in Belgium and, until March 2014, in the Netherlands as well. Belgium Each municipality in Belgium that existed as a separate entity on 1 J ...

'' of

Buildings and sights

Schouwbroek Castle was known to exist since 1755. In 1894, it was rebuilt in

eclectic Eclectic may refer to: Music * ''Eclectic'' (Eric Johnson and Mike Stern album), 2014 * ''Eclectic'' (Big Country album), 1996 * Eclectic Method, name of an audio-visual remix act * Eclecticism in music, the conscious use of styles alien to th ...

style, and a large park was laid out around the castle. Near the entrance are three

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

trees. One of the trees is the thickest chestnut of Belgium. In 2014, the trees were measured by the Belgian Dendrological Society, and the tree has a trunk

circumference In geometry, the circumference (from Latin ''circumferens'', meaning "carrying around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. That is, the circumference would be the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to ...

of , and is possibly the oldest chestnut as well. Vinderhoute Castle was originally a fortified medieval castle. It was demolished and replaced by a manor house in the mid 16th century. It remained inhabited by the Lords of Vinderhoute. During the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, the ''

'' Vinderhoute was disestablished. In the mid-19th century, the estate was extensively renovated. The estate used to have a private road to the parish church. The Saint Bavo Church was first mentioned in 966. The current church dates was constructed between 1855 and 1856, and is an aisleless neoclassic church with built-in tower. Unlike most churches it is

oriented In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space is ...

to the south. The

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

Van Vlaenderensmolen is a windmill from 1905 located on a slight elevation. The earliest windmill at the site was a wooden mill which was first attested in 1591. The windmill remained in service until 1958, and was later used as a residential house. It was extensively renovated between 2008 and 2009, but most of the inner workings had been removed.

Gallery

File:Lieve-fietsroute 006 Herenhuis Vinderhoute 23-06-2008 11-35-29.JPG, Villa in Vinderhoute File:Van Vlaenderensmolen-6.jpg, Windmill Van Vlaenderensmolen File:Lieve-fietsroute 015 Oude Kale in Vinderhoute bij de Van Vlaenderensmolen 23-06-2008 12-17-52.JPG, Country side near Vinderhoute File:Kasteel Schouwbroek in Vinderhoute (Lovendegem).jpg, Schouwbroek Castle File:Chestnut Drove, Castle domain of Vinderhoute.jpg, Chestnut Drove, Castle domain of Vinderhoute

References

{{Authority control Lievegem Populated places in East Flanders