Kasteel Tongelaar

The castle stands around an inner courtyard and occupies the site of an earlier defensive enclosure. The present footprint is roughly square, with the principal entrance oriented on the southern side. A drawbridge was still crossed to reach the gateway during the 19th century, and a restored well marks the location of the earlier main keep that once stood just west of the current house; that earlier keep had been taken down by the mid-18th century.

A dominant, nearly square tower forms the most visible feature on the site. Its plan measures about 7.7 by 7.9 metres and the wall thickness exceeds 1.5 metres. The tower preserves the original gateway and the hardware needed to operate a drawbridge, including pivot supports, door hinges and openings for chains or ropes. A stair projection on the western side gives access to upper levels.

The tower’s eastern side contains latrines that discharged into the surrounding moat. The projecting stair tower shelters a small defendable cellar fitted with firing slits appropriate for the arquebus (an early handheld firearm). Later alterations introduced a door and additional windows into the tower’s eastern elevation.

Excavations in 1964 revealed a sequence of masonry phases. The earliest substantial masonry on the main site is a late-14th-century square keep measuring about 6.9 by 8.6 metres, built of brick with walls between 1.0 and 1.2 metres thick. In a subsequent campaign two annex rooms, each roughly 4.8 by 3.9 metres with slightly thinner walls, were founded on Limburg chalk and constructed with bricks about 27 by 14 by 6 centimetres; an abundance of animal bones next to the northern annex indicates that room served as a kitchen or food-preparation space.

A later building phase added a roughly 7 by 6 metre square tower on the southeast side, also with walls about 1.0 to 1.2 metres thick. That tower contained a well, may have included a bridge cellar, and likely functioned as the gatehouse for the main castle complex. The large bailey tower is dated to the late 14th century and corresponds in date with these earliest masonry elements of the main house.

Construction throughout is primarily brick set on foundations of Limburg chalk, with a variety of brick sizes visible in the fabric. The lower chamber of the early gate tower is spanned by a barrel vault (a semi-cylindrical vaulted ceiling), while the first floor shows a ribbed vault (a vault featuring projecting ribs) and retains an old fireplace. The western wing probably belongs to the 18th century and may rest on reused brick from the former gatehouse; the northern wing also appears to date largely from the 18th century but occupies sites of earlier buildings. The eastern wing’s age is not specified. The southern wall is the oldest surviving curtain and contains blocked embrasures, and buildings formerly stood along that face. The gatehouse was provided with toilets and a mantelpiece on its first-floor chamber, showing it was intended for domestic use from its construction, a layout that is uncommon for a fortified outer courtyard gateway in the Netherlands.