"Built in 1634, the Hôtel de la Noble Cour housed the Châtellenie and then the tribunal before transferring the Town Hall there after its mobilization as the Headquarters of Marshal Foch.
The Landshuyd now houses the Departmental Museum of Flanders.
The Hotel de la Noble Cour has had a troubled history. Until the Battles of Flanders in 1677, Cassel belonged to the County of Flanders. The Hôtel de la Noble Cour housed the châtellenie which had an administrative and financial role and the Court which exercised local justice.
The châtellenie would have been founded in the XIth century undoubtedly by Robert the Frisian but no document attests it; however an act of 1218 mentions its purchase by the Countess Jeanne de Flandre. From that date and until the French Revolution, several bailiffs were in charge of the châtellenie which brought together 9 vierschaves or jurisdictions, or 54 parishes located today mostly in interior French Flanders.
In the 18th century a room, now called the "chatellenie room", was fitted out there for the storage of archives; the courtroom is located on the first floor of the building.
The building is characterized by a Renaissance facade from the 16th century, visible from the Grand'Place, and by typical Flemish architecture on the garden side, with in particular a "sparrow-steps" gable. Inside, the variety of decorations, between sculpted woodwork and bricks, gives the whole a warm character. From the pretty paved courtyard and the garden at the rear of the building, the view over the Flanders plain is breathtaking.
The Hôtel de la Noble Cour stretches between the main square of Cassel and the garden in a continuity favored by the glass doors on either side of the reception hall. The garden resonates with Flemish paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries. We find the same principle of color gradation: from green ocher to blue for the distance, creating this impression of "atmospheric perspective". It is organized in terraces, structured with various typically Flemish materials, such as brick or blue stone, and offers one of the most breathtaking views of the Flemish plain.
The Cassel plan of 1640 reveals a configuration of the garden practically identical to that of today: an upper part without any particular landscaping treatment and a lower part decorated with trees. A 1926 plan showing the building at the end of the 18th century suggests a French garden."