The Vordenstein domain is a

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

in the

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

municipality of

Schoten Schoten () is a municipality located in Antwerp Province, Belgium. The municipality only comprises the town of Schoten proper. As of 1 January 2020 Schoten has a total population of 34,311. The total area is which gives a population density of ...

, northeast of

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. It separated from the adjacent

Peerdsbos The Peerdsbos is a forest and nature domain situated in the Belgian municipalities of Brasschaat and Schoten, to the north of the city of Antwerp. The domain largely consists of forests and directly borders the Vordenstein domain in Schoten to t ...

forest by the E19 highway to the North.

History

The Vordenstein domain was created in the 14th century out of the ''Hof ter Katen'' and the ''Hof van de Werve''. At that time, the domain had a mainly agrarian function, with the

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...

lord leasing patches of the land to various farmers. Starting in the 18th century, the domain gradually evolved into a recreational estate with a

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

and an extensive

pleasure garden A pleasure garden is a park or garden that is open to the public for recreation and entertainment. Pleasure gardens differ from other public gardens by serving as venues for entertainment, variously featuring such attractions as concert halls, ...

, owned by a succession of wealthy families from Antwerp as a countryside retreat. In 1980 the majority of the park was eventually bought by the Belgian state, and subsequently opened to the public. A smaller part in the middle of the domain remains privately owned by the De Pret family that inherited the domain at the beginning of the 20th century.

Layout

The majority of the present day layout stems from the 18th and 19th centuries. The oldest part of the park, the so-called ''Sterrenbos'' in the northeastern corner, was laid out in a

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

and

geometrical Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

fashion, inspired by the French gardens of Versailles. At the end of the 18th century, a forest in romantic style was planted in the middle of the park. The southwestern part of the domain was laid out in 1850 as an

English landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

, with a pond, patches of trees and

exotic plants An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

. In the southeast lies the

vegetable garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

and the

orangerie An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large ...

, which was built in the early 19th century, and is now used as a

cafe A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-caf ...

. The forests in the northwest and the east were only planted at the end of the 19th century on what had been land used for farming.

References

{{reflist Parks in Belgium Geography of Antwerp Schoten