Founded in 1854 (see the date stone), designed by architect Louis Spaak. The town hall was only registered in the land register in 1859, together with the adjoining school wing built in that period; the land register gives 1855 as the year of construction and 1856 as the year it came into use. Initially part of the town hall was used as the headteacher's residence; the council chamber, upstairs, also served as a classroom, and the rest was used as the secretariat; in 1858 a classroom, since demolished, was added at the back of the town hall.
In front of the building stand four sixteenth-century boundary posts from the former ducal hunting estate of Saventerlo, which extended over the site of the present national airport. Originally Saventerlo is said to have been marked out by 150 boundary posts; a few have survived, four placed in Diegem and one in Nossegem in the playground of the Sint-Lambertus school.
They are low bluestone pillars topped with a Saint Andrew's cross, the symbol of the Burgundian dynasty.
Burggrachtstraat 1A, Zaventem (Flemish Brabant)
A long wait for a town hall
For a long time Diegem had no town hall of its own. At the end of the 18th century deeds were drawn up ‘in my house’, at the home of the municipal agent. In 1846 the mayor had to defend himself: the office was in his inn, but according to him nobody had to pass through the taproom and nobody was offered a drink. Only with the building of the municipal school in 1854, to plans by Louis Spaak, did a secretariat come downstairs and a council chamber upstairs. In 1935 the old classrooms were converted into offices. After 1945 a new town hall was considered near the towers of Castle Marga or in the presbytery garden, but the merger of 1977 put an end to the plan.