Deurne, Antwerp — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Deurne?

The Sterckshof, a moated castle an Antwerp merchant rebuilt in 1524, stands in the Rivierenhof grounds the province bought in 1921 to make the city's largest park. Sint-Fredeganduskerk came first. The original parish church of Deurne stands on the Lakborslei, its cemetery park alongside.

Boekenbergpark keeps a ruined tower and a grotto complex from a folly garden laid out around 1800, and a swimming pond opened in 2007. The Renaat Braem House, which the architect built for himself, is open as a museum. Antwerp International Airport has flown from the southern edge since 1923, among the oldest airfields still in use.

What is the history of Deurne?

Deurne first appears in the record in 1185, farmland in the eastern hinterland of Antwerp on the road out to Turnhout that became the Turnhoutsebaan. Merchants came out from the city. Antwerp money built country seats here from the sixteenth century, Sterckshof and Bisschoppenhof among them, and enough of them survived the wars to give the district its parks.

Nineteenth-century fortifications cut the western part away as Borgerhout. Building filled the rest under a plan begun in 1913. Deurne stayed a municipality of its own until 1983, when it became one of the nine districts of Greater Antwerp.

Where is Deurne?

Parks take up much of Deurne. Rivierenhof follows the Grote Schijn across the south, and Boekenbergpark and the moated Bisschoppenhof sit in the streets around it.