Kasteel van Laarne, Medieval castle and museum in Laarne, Belgium

Kasteel van Laarne is a medieval castle in the Belgian municipality of Laarne, built in stone with a central keep and round towers capped with pointed stone roofs. The whole structure sits on an island surrounded by a wide water-filled moat.

Around 1200 a timber structure stood here; the first stone building, the forerunner of the gatehouse, rose around 1300, and within 150 years the site had become a water castle. Ghent's rebels besieged and took it, and fire marks from 22 September 1382 remain visible. In 1579 it was left "ruyné et bruslé" and uninhabitable for ten years; the Vilsteren family, owners from 1656, gave it its present layout after Laarne became a barony in 1673.

The castle's interior rooms display a collection of Brussels tapestries and old furniture from different centuries, giving visitors a concrete sense of how wealthy families once lived. Walking through the rooms feels less like a museum visit and more like stepping into a furnished home from another era.

The castle is located outside the center of Ghent and is most easily reached by car or bicycle. The site is compact enough that the courtyard and indoor rooms can all be visited in one go, without needing to plan a long day.

The chapel inside the keep was built around 1350, and fragments of its original wall paintings survive. During the French occupation of 1796 the bell was taken down from the main tower, the chapel was damaged and most of the coats of arms were hacked away.