Poeke Castle

When the first fortification was raised at Poeke is not known, but the place appears in the record from 1139 onwards. The lords who held it were loyal vassals of the Counts of Flanders, and they married into the comital house: Anastasia van Oultre, second wife of Eulaard III of Poeke, took as her second husband Robert of Flanders, illegitimate son of Count Louis II.

In 1382 Louis II fell into open conflict with the city of Ghent, and Poeke had a prominent part in it. Eulaard II of Poeke was killed that year at the battle of Beverhoutsveld, leading the count's troops against the advance of the Ghent militia; the militia took his stronghold.

During the revolt of Ghent against Philip the Good in 1452 the castle was again taken by the Ghent militia, and the duke came to recover it. On 5 July 1452 Philip took the place back, hanged the eighty-seven Ghent men found in it, and had the building destroyed.

Rebuilding most likely took more than a century. After the death of Jan III of Poeke in 1563 the lordship passed to the de Mastaing family, distant relatives of the lords of Poeke. Jean de Jauche, lord of Mastaing, sold it in 1588 to Philibert Delrye, and Delrye's son Christoffel sold it on in 1597 to Jean de Preudhomme of Lille.

The Preudhomme d'Hailly line then held Poeke for generations. Jean-Baptiste held the lordship until his death in 1642; his successor Jean-François was killed at the battle of Rocroi the following year. Marc-Antoine (1617–1699) held it next and had building work carried out between 1658 and 1664 and again in 1671, though for want of sources and of any depiction of the castle from before that date it is not possible to say what the work changed. He died at Ghent in 1699, and his eldest son Charles-François kept Poeke until he died there unmarried in 1721. Marc-Antoine-Albert (1660–1722) held the lordship for a single year before his own death at Ghent.

Poeke passed in 1722 to Marc-Antoine-Albert's son. Charles Florent Idesbald de Preudhomme d'Hailly (1716–1792), Burgrave of Nieuwpoort, Oombergen, Sint-Lievens-Esse and Schoonbergen, Baron of Poeke and lord of Neuville, Kanegem and Velaine, carried out significant work on the castle between 1743 and 1752. He committed his own fortune to it, an outlay that contributed irretrievably to the ruin of a family several of whose members had made their name in the sciences.

The garden and the great park around the castle were laid out at his initiative as well. A central point was set within the park from which several avenues opened, giving a view over the whole surrounding country: one ran to the castle terrace, others towards the churches of Poeke, Lotenhulle, Ruiselede and Aalter. Most of those avenues afterwards disappeared under felling, in years when the family was less prosperous.

Charles Florent Idesbald died in Paris in 1792. Louis-Ernest (1743–1830) followed him at Poeke and died there leaving no descendants by either of his two wives; the lordship went to his brother Constantin-François (1748–1835), who died at Bruges, and then to Constantin-François's grandson Constantin-Adolphe (1807–1866), who died at Poeke. In 1872 Alfred, together with his sister Isabelle, sold the castle.

The buyer was Baron Victor Pycke de Peteghem (1835–1875) of Oudenaarde, who began rebuilding at once and carried it on until 1875. The third storey was taken up into a higher roof, and the interior and the gardens were thoroughly reworked; hardly any element of the building dates from before 1872. The French garden was turned into an English one, and in 1881 a large round kennel was built, warmed by an oven set on the far side of it, for a household of keen hunters.

The castle became an official national monument on 13 October 1943. The last of the line, Baroness Ines Pycke de Peteghem, who also served as burgemeester, was the last owner to live in it; by a will dated 1951 she left the whole estate to the Nationaal Werk der Katholieke Schoolkolonies, which came into possession of it after her death in 1955. That body, later renamed Duinen en Heide, ran holiday accommodation on the estate, and in term time the place served as a centre for children in difficulty.

In 1977 the castle and its 56 hectares of park became the property of the municipality of Aalter, which used it for cultural gatherings and festivities, and the park was protected as landscape heritage from 1 March 1978. Interior and exterior scenes for the 2012 BBC/HBO production of Parade's End were filmed at Poeke. In July 2021 the municipal council transferred the castle to the Flemish government for a symbolic sum; it remains a protected monument.