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FrançaisHof ter Saksen is a free public castle park in Beveren, south-west of the town centre and about 20 minutes by car from Antwerp, and it opens every day from 9am with no ticket and no gate. The centrepiece is an 18th-century classical castle, but the reason to come is the arboretum around it, which holds a collection of some 4,500 plant species built up since 1982 with a focus on China and Japan.
When I travel I always do some of the must-sees, but I get as much pleasure, and often more, out of the smaller things. That goes for days out here in Belgium too, and I am a sucker for a park you can wander around in without a plan. Hof ter Saksen is one of those. I went at the beginning of April, when the arboretum was just starting to break into leaf and flower, and it must be extraordinary a few weeks later.
Opening hours and entry
Hof ter Saksen is free to enter, and the hours run to two seasons.
| Season | Park opening hours |
|---|---|
| 1 March to 31 October | daily, 9am to 8pm |
| 1 November to end of February | daily, 9am to 4.30pm |
Dogs on a lead are welcome on the avenues and the marked paths, and there is a dog run beside the car park where they can be let off. There is no ticket office, no admission charge and nothing to book. The only thing on the estate that keeps its own hours is the cafeteria in the Orangerie.
What Hof ter Saksen is
Hof ter Saksen is one of the enclosed park woods of the Waasland, an English-landscape park of roughly 13 hectares (32 acres) laid out around a castle, an orangery and a former farm. The Flemish heritage inventory protects the castle’s façades and roof as a monument, listed in February 1980, and the park as a cultural-historical landscape, listed in November 1989. Monumental beech avenues run north to south and east to west and meet at the heart of the estate.
The name is older than the castle and stranger than it looks. It reads as “Court of the Saxons” in modern Dutch, but the Saxons have nothing to do with it. The earliest records call the estate het Schaak, which became het goed Schaeckx, then Saeckx, and finally Saksen. Every one of those names means a manor or a holding. Long before the present house, the site carried a building with a double purpose: a working farm, and an inn for travellers on the road between Antwerp and the Waasland.
One administrative note that catches people out. Beveren merged with Kruibeke and Zwijndrecht on 1 January 2025 to form the municipality of Beveren-Kruibeke-Zwijndrecht, so the park is now run by that council. Older guides and maps that send you to the town of Beveren are still correct about the place; only the letterhead changed.
The castle
The castle at Hof ter Saksen dates from the last quarter of the 18th century and is built in classical style, and its recent renovation is finished. Guides written before the works finished still say the council has yet to decide what to do with the building. That question has been answered.
The most striking result is a painting. Honorons la Terre by the Symbolist artist Albert Ciamberlani (1864 to 1956), the largest work in the municipal art collection at 3.47 by 5.24 m (11.4 by 17.2 ft), was restored for Hof ter Saksen and built into the design of the renovated interior. The castle is opened for guided visits and events rather than kept open daily, so check the council’s calendar if seeing inside is the point of the trip. The park around it needs no arrangement at all.
The Orangerie, the orchard and the apple juice
The Orangerie sits right beside the castle and now houses a garden cafeteria, open from April to the end of October on Sundays and public holidays from 2pm to 6pm, and on Wednesdays from 2pm to 6pm. Volunteers from the Hortus ter Saksen association run it at weekends; on Wednesday afternoons it is staffed by workers from the De Bron and De Stroom care services. If you are working from an older guide that says March to October and Sundays only, the Wednesday opening is new and the March one is gone.
Order the apple juice. It is pressed from the estate’s own fruit, because Hof ter Saksen keeps a standard-tree orchard of 234 trees growing old Waasland varieties of apple, pear, cherry and plum. You can walk straight through the orchard, which is the part of the park that changes most visibly between spring blossom and autumn picking.
The arboretum
The arboretum is the reason to come back, and it sits centrally in the park. It has held a plant collection since 1982, focused on China and Japan, and the collection now runs to about 4,500 species, set in deep borders of perennials, shrubs and trees rather than in a botanical grid. A tea pavilion was added in 2007, open to everyone, looking out over one of the park’s finest borders, which is a deliberate nod to the Asian collection it sits in.
This was my favourite part of the park. In early April the borders were only beginning to move, and even then there was more to look at than in most gardens at full stretch. Mid-spring is clearly the moment.
The waymarked Botaniek walk is the way to see the collection if you would rather follow a route than wander. Beyond the arboretum, the estate also holds a nature garden where regional plants are left to grow as they will, the valley of the Beverse beek with its buffer basin, an oak wood, a birth wood and an ice house.
Guided group visits cover the bee hall, the bat reserve and the arboretum, and they are booked through the council rather than joined on the day. That is the only part of Hof ter Saksen that costs anything or needs arranging.
How to get to Hof ter Saksen
Drive, and park on the estate. The car park is at Hof ter Saksendreef 2, 9120 Beveren, and it is about 20 minutes from Antwerp across the Scheldt. The estate address is Hof ter Saksendreef; some older listings still give a Haasdonkbaan number, which is a different entrance to the same domain.
Beveren has its own station on the Antwerp to Ghent line, and the park is a walk or a short cycle south-west of the town centre from there, which makes this a genuinely car-free day out if you want one. Comparing train times is worth a minute, because the Antwerp to Beveren service is frequent but the return gaps widen in the evening.
If you are combining Hof ter Saksen with the rest of the Waasland or the Scheldt polders, a car makes far more sense than the bus network does, so compare car hire rates for an Antwerp pick-up before you commit to the day.
Combining Hof ter Saksen with Antwerp
Hof ter Saksen works as a half-day off an Antwerp trip rather than as a destination on its own. Twenty minutes each way and two hours in the park fits comfortably into an afternoon, and it is the easiest green escape from the city on the left bank of the Scheldt. Our guides to things to do in Antwerp and Antwerp’s coffee bars cover the other half of that day.
Hof ter Saksen FAQ
Is Hof ter Saksen free?
Yes. The park, the arboretum, the orchard and the nature garden are all free to enter and open every day from 9am, with no ticket office and nothing to book. Only the guided group visits to the bee hall, the bat reserve and the arboretum are arranged and charged separately through the council.
When is the best time to visit Hof ter Saksen?
Mid-spring is the moment for the arboretum, when the Asian collection and the borders come out together and the orchard blossoms. Early April is a little too early, as I found. Autumn is the second choice, for the orchard and the leaf colour in the beech avenues.
Can you go inside the castle at Hof ter Saksen?
Not on an ordinary day. The 18th-century castle has been renovated and now houses Albert Ciamberlani’s monumental painting Honorons la Terre, but it opens for guided visits and events rather than daily, so check the council’s programme before you count on it. The park around it is open every day.
How far is Hof ter Saksen from Antwerp?
About 20 minutes by car from Antwerp, on the left bank of the Scheldt. Beveren also has a station on the Antwerp to Ghent railway line, and the park lies south-west of the town centre, within walking or cycling distance of the station.
WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips
The 4 tips below come from walking the park in April and from re-checking its opening rules against the council’s own pages, and each one contradicts something still in circulation.
- The park opens at 9am, not 10am. Two seasons, one gate: 9am to 8pm from 1 March to 31 October, and 9am to 4.30pm from 1 November to the end of February. A lot of listings still print a 10am start.
- The Orangerie cafeteria now opens on Wednesdays as well as Sundays. It runs April to the end of October, 2pm to 6pm on Sundays, public holidays and Wednesdays. It does not open in March any more, which is exactly when the park starts to be worth the trip.
- Come mid-spring, not early April. I went at the beginning of April and the arboretum was only starting to bloom. A few weeks later and the Chinese and Japanese collection is at its peak, and the 234-tree orchard is in blossom at the same time.
- Ask for the apple juice in the Orangerie. It is pressed from the estate’s own standard-tree orchard, which grows old Waasland varieties of apple, pear, cherry and plum. It is the only thing here you cannot get anywhere else.
About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, who is Belgian and writes the site’s Belgium coverage from home ground, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her April visit to Hof ter Saksen. The team covers the parks, castles and gardens of Flanders for independent travellers, alongside the Antwerp restaurants, hotels and coffee bars worth booking, and updates this page when opening hours and access rules change.
