Belgium's Creepy Abandoned 19th Century Castle

  Castle Miranda has stood in Celles since 1866, Belgium, but has long been abandoned to decay and rot. It is an urban explorer's dream, and one such individual went in and documented the sad and eerie state it is in today. The ancestors of the family that own it fled to Celles during the French Revolution to hide in a farmhouse, and as the family grew they commissioned this wonderful castle from famed English architect Milner.

 The castle is also known as Chateau Noisy after the children's home it was turned into – following the Second World War – by the National Railway Company of Belgium for the children of employees. It stayed a children's home until 1980 and has been abandoned since 1991. Here you see the destroyed classroom that was used, its paint flaking but with the blackboard still standing.

The kitchen is often considered the heart of a home but here is the castle kitchen with cracked tiles, a lonely chair and the stoves still in place. 

Even the floors are gone, parquet or tile long ago stripped and taken away. We don't know who it was – it could have been vandals or looters or the castle owners. The vandals set fire to different areas, including the horse barns, which have completely collapsed. One group of jokers put a mannequin of a "dead body" in the bathroom and hung some dolls from rafters as well.

A room destroyed by time; the ceiling has fallen in; an old chest or wardrobe has come apart; wallpaper peels off the walls exposing the dangers of exploring the old castle.

A long corridor, likely once hung with pictures, is now a haven of decay and rot. The stone is crumbling and mildew seeps in to add to the atmosphere of forgotten lives and dreams.

Castle Miranda's once elegant foyer, with its marvelous high-arced ceilings and windows, is a place of empty visions now. The place where beautifully dressed woman used to sweep down the stairs to go out for dinner or to greet guests is now a ruin.

This stairway has crumbled into a dangerous slide now. You can see old picture frames lying in the rubble above. Bright light streaming in through the windows makes for quite a contrast with the decay found inside the castle.

The back view shows the enormous size of the castle, with little hint of the rack and ruin inside apart from the overgrown grass and shrubbery. The only sign of modernity is the fire escape.