Qualla: Geldrop Castle

Geldrop Castle: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain. In September 1629, 's-Hertogenbosch fell to the Dutch Republic, and its bishop fled south to a small castle on the edge of the Kleine Dommel valley owned by a Catholic loyalist family. He arrived at Geldrop on 23 March 1630 and remained there for five years, until 1635. His name was Michael Ophovius, and he was a friend of the painter Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens visited Geldrop Castle several times during the bishop's exile and made multiple portraits of him - one of which still hangs today in art museums far from this quiet corner of North Brabant. The keep where Ophovius hid was demolished in 1840. The outer bailey where Rubens dined is still standing.

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Image: Peter Paul Rubens | Public domain

Geldrop Castle: Built by the Van Geldrops

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G.Lanting, CC BY-SA 3.0. Philip van Geldrop and his son Jan built the first castle on this site around 1350, holding the lordship of Geldrop as a loan from the Duke of Guelders. Jan fought on the Brabant side at the Battle of Baesweiler in 1371 - a battle Brabant lost. The family held the castle through ...

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Image: G.Lanting | CC BY-SA 3.0

Geldrop Castle: The Van Horne Centuries

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rasbak, CC BY-SA 3.0. For the next two hundred years the Van Hornes owned the castle but rarely came to it - Geldrop was a minor possession in a large portfolio. In 1580, Willem van Horne was beheaded for treason in Le Quesnoy; in 1585 the governor of the Netherlands, Alexander Farnese, transferred th...

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Image: Rasbak | CC BY-SA 3.0

Geldrop Castle: The Hoevenaar Rebuild

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit M.Minderhoud, CC BY-SA 3.0. The lordship sold again in 1716 to the Irish-named John O'Donnoghue, and again in 1768 to Adriaan van Sprangh of Leiden - the first Protestant lord, who got just four years of ownership before he died. The French Revolution cancelled all feudal rights in 1795, and the castle's in...

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Image: M.Minderhoud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Geldrop Castle: Park, Sequoia, and the Sad Beech

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter van der Wielen, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl. Around 1866 Hoevenaar laid out an 11-hectare English landscape garden around the castle. He was a tree man. The park still contains a 38-metre giant sequoia he planted, an 18-piece Platanaceae collection - the only one in the Netherlands - and exotic Oriental planes. A famous Eur...

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Image: Peter van der Wielen | CC BY-SA 3.0 nl