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A story loaded with history
With its quadrangle design, and rural and opulent architecture, the Grand-Spinois farm still seems to resonate with all the life that has perpetuated its history, which began, or so they say, somewhere in the 12th century.
How many men, women, children and animals have graced these ancestral stones and bricks with the sound of their voices, their laborious toil, the soul of life which unfurled when they lived here?
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Traces of history
The current buildings of the Grand-Spinois farm date from the mid 18th century.Traces of its existence, however, go back to the 12th century.
In fact: a letter written by Pope Eugene III, in 1147, reports that the farm belonged to the Abbey of the Prémontrés de Tronchiennes (Drongen), near Ghent.
A magnificent stone coat of arms, displaying the coat of arms of the Tronchiennes Abbey, and adorning one of the reception rooms, is a modern-day reminder of this distant past.
The story of the Grand-Spinois farm espouses the vagueness of the passage of time and its unknown elements. However, under the French regime, the Tronchienne Abbey was suppressed and the Grand-Spinois farm was put up for public sale in 1797. There then followed a succession of different owners over time. |
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A family of farmers…
The parents of the current owners, the Rigaux farming family, moved into the Grand-Spinois farm and continued their livelihood in arable and animal farming there until the end of the war in 1946. They had 3 children, one of whom, Jean-Paul Rigaux, returned to the farm in 1989 to continue the family tradition. |
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Unfailing popularity
Nowadays, the Grand-Spinois farm has 70 hectares of crops (beets, wheat, flax, rape), but no more livestock.
The activities here have become diverse – in support of huge restoration works and development of the barn and its outbuildings – in order to make a reception location that is totally unique, with an authentic character, just a stone’s throw from Brussels. |
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