Tower of Alvaux
Alvaux Tower, also known as Tour d'Alvaux or Alvau or also called Saracen tower, is a plain residential tower of the late 12th century located in Nil-Saint-Vincent-Saint-Martin, a village in the Belgian town of Walhain, the province of Walloon Brabant.
The tower stands in the village of Nil-Saint-Vincent, near Mont-Saint-Guibert south of the city of Brussels in Belgium.[1] Alvaux Tower is a tower house built between 1183 and 1217 by Arnould II de Walhain. The land was yielded to him by Bertha, the abbess of Nivelles, in 1199.[2] The tower was attached to Walhain Castle and had connections with the nearby Griffon du Bois Tower.
When it was built it was surrounded by ditches and equipped with a drawbridge. On top there would have been a pyramidal roof. With this roof the tower would have been some 20 meters high.
Today the tower is situated on a camping ground with access to the tower prohibited and to side the site is surrounded by marshland surrounded by two small arm of the river Orneau.
History
[edit]This plain tower seems to have been built shortly after 1199AD for a cadet branch of the family of the lords of Walhain.[3] In 1199, the abbess of Nivelles Berthe sold to Arnould Walhain a wasteland on which Arnould decided to build a large house that was the residence of several generations of Walhain.
References
[edit]- ^ chateaubelgique.com.
- ^ www.pixelsbw.com Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Le Patrimoine monumental de la Belgique, Wallonie 2, Brabant, Arrondissement de Nivelles, Pierre Mardaga éditeur, 1998, p. 350.