Antwerp pleasances: a belt of country retreats beyond the city limits

The city of Antwerp was a very important centre in the Low Countries in the 16th century. As a result of the city's economic success and prosperity it attracted many people, among them artisans, artists, merchants and fortune-seekers from beyond the city limits. Inspired by examples of Italian villas and the influence of humanism, the villa rustica became all the rage for country living. Tenant farms were bought by wealthy Antwerp burghers and converted into a so-called hof van plaisantie (literally: pleasure court) where the owner could spend his free time or summer outside the city in the countryside. The demand for such pleasances grew quickly which lead to the development of residential areas with so-called speelhoven (literally: games courts). These speelhoven or leisure retreats were developed in two main areas within the freedom of the city: Leikwartier (Lee Quarter) and Papenmoer (Popes Moor). Outside of the city's freedom many pleasances were erected. Most stood just outside the city limits in rural villages such as het Kiel, Hoboken, Deurne, Wilrijk, Merksem, Borgerhout and Schoten. As a result the city became encircled by a belt of country seats, pleasances and summer houses. A similar development can be seen in other cities in the Duchy of Brabant like Bois-le-Duc ('s-Hertogenbosch), Mechlin, Louvain, Breda and Brussels, and around other cities like Ghent, Bruges, Goes, Middelburg, Rotterdam, The Hague, Harlem, Arnhem, Groningen, Utrecht, Amersfoort and Amsterdam. The southern examples are all earlier than the northern ones, with the exception of Utrecht.

With the economic success of the city, Antwerp became more and more crowded within the confines of its defensive walls and moats. So city dwellers escaped to the country as often as they could permit themselves. For the workers the main attractions of the countryside were inns with cheaper beer, games, gambling and other "naughtiness". The upper classes of burghers, merchants and noblemen fled the city for longer periods of time, often the whole of summer. This led to a system of hidden urbanisation as rich urbanites bought landholdings, tenant farms and even country seats or manors and improved them by adding a simple apartment with a playing room onto an existing farm or erecting fancy new structures on a moated site behind splendid gates.

The ideals of country living landed in fertile soil in Antwerp as there were no less than 8000 foreign merchants, bankers and traders. The Spanish (300), Italians (200) and Germans (150) made up the bulk of  the foreigners in the city. The rise of the urban economy also led to a shift in power. Traditionally the nobility, the clergy and the local elite stood at the centre of power. These groups, however, were no match for the new urban elite that arose in the Low Countries from the 13th century onwards. In later centuries the rural elite could only hold on to power by also becoming manifest in the city by building large townhouses, often with a defensive tower, and taking up key positions in urban governance. This cost money, so some of the rural assets had to be liquidated. The rising elite of wealthy merchants picked up these rural holdings as a foothold outside of the city to entertain, demonstrate their wealth and make money.

The classically inspired villa rustica involved high living in the countryside, but at the same time was focussed on the enlightening effects of nature. Especially those that bought a tenant farm or arable land kept their holdings as working farms often adding city oriented produce such as orchards and eggs. However pleasurable it was to be able to flee the city during the summer months or at leisure, property outside the city limits was mainly viewed as an investment. And a safe investment at that, with relatively modest returns, but a steady income nonetheless. The aim of the urban owner was to realise a coherent domain around their mansion, cottage or farm, always keen to enlarge their properties to increase production by buying up adjacent parcels or trading land with other owners to create continuous landholdings. The urban owners of the working farms and farmland were seldom interested in the production process and employed farmers to cultivate the land and rear the produce.

The typical development of a pleasance ran as follows. A member of the wealthy urban elite would acquire an existing farm or cottage from a member of the old elite like a convent or lesser nobleman. The person who took over the domain became the owner and the tenant farmer became a long leaseholder who operated from the farm buildings. The owner than built a playing room onto or into the farm building, sometimes a new farm was built and the old farmhouse was replaced by a summer residence. Especially former manorial moated sites were favoured for this. The norm for a country residence was a large house on a courtyard surrounded by a moat and secured by a gate (building) that was surrounded by a kitchen garden, orchard and pleasure garden. All these would be laid out in a orthogonal style in so-called perken (literarily: secluded space or fenced-off portion and to be equated to the French parc). If there was room pasture and even a small copse would be included in the total layout. These copses were also developed into a so-called sterrebos (a chase consisting of an often coppiced wood dissected by avenues of trees that join to make a star figure with 6 or 8 arms). The reworking of a property into a pleasance also included the erection of stables, orangery, housing for personnel and small cottages that could be rented out. Apart from the large pleasances (hoven van plaisantie) the smaller leisure retreats (speelhoven)  includes little more than a house and a yard often with only a small garden.

Of the pleasances and country retreats that once encircled Antwerp, few remain today. The ones shown in dark green are still in use as a private residence or have been converted into a public park after purchase by the local council. The house and outbuildings still stand. This is not necessarily the case for those ones shown in light green that also include examples that have been partially built over. The majority shown in red are no longer in existence and have been developed for housing, services like a hospital or industrial use. The area immediately adjacent to the city moat was barred from development as this was the field of fire so no pleasances were ever built here. In the polders north of the city no pleasances were established, these all cluster on the higher sandy soils.