Fable

“Only when the fable becomes reality, you are afraid of not being able to tell anymore.“

Thinking about Disneyland … and for a moment you came back to childhood, and again you believe the fairy tales that begin with “Once upon a time …” and end with “And they lived happily ever after” . But… after the all lived happily ever after, what happend to the most famous castles of fairy tales? I’m going to tell you.

I visited this amazing place during my first tour in Belgium. It was the first stop.
After a travel through pretty villages, full of cottage and small farms in the countryside, we parked at the edge of a great forest.
The sun of late afternoon filtered through the foliage of the trees with the first shades of autumn.
Then here it is, the huge castle in all its grandeur and wonder.
I felt like I was in a fairy tale…so I entered, the blue stairs and the blue vaulted ceiling were still there, although vandalized.
And then on top of the tower, 56 meters in height, I was there to scan the world over the roofs of the manor and the trees.

Chateau Noisy Miranda has 550 windows and a clock tower 56 meters high.
But if we trace back this watch hands now stopped for over 25 years, maybe we’ll find the lost fairy tale.
At the time of the French Revolution, the family of the Counts of Liedekerke-Beaufort was escaping from their residence in France and took refuge in a farm in the countryside of Celles, near the city of Namur.
During the nineteenth century, the Ragaillardis family, descendant of Liedekerke-Beaoufort, transformed the farm into the castle, according to the plans of the English architect Edward Milner, who died before seeing finished his work. Between 1902 and 1907 a further reshuffle, planned by the french architect Pelchner, built the central tower of the castle and so it became the summer residence of the noble family.

During World War II the entire property was requisitioned by the highest offices of the German troops in Namur. In 1950 the heirs of the family-Ledekerke Beafort granted the building loan for use to the Belgian railway company that made it for a long time a summer center for the children of railway workers.
After years of use, the building, that was in state of decline, was finally abandoned in 1991 following a small fire and mold weeds.

It was the site of filming for the movie “Dead man talking” of 2012.
In 2013, the descendant of Liedekerke-Beaufort presented an application to the local authorities to demolish the building because of the risk for the safety of the many visitors who ventured inside.
The Belgian Government in 2014 proposed to enter the building in the list of monuments to be protected, but the answer was negative.

Will there be a happy end to this place?
News of 2017: the castle has been destroying.