The Hôtel de la Noble Cour (also known as the "Landshuys") off Cassel's Grande Place houses the Musée de Flandre, which opened in 2010. The museum presents the art, history and folklore of the French Flanders region. Built in the 16th century under Spanish rule, the mansion's stone-built façade (unusual for Flanders) is decorated in a French Renaissance style and has unusual carvings of grotesque heads, mythical beasts and other figures. The building originally housed the "Noble Court" of the Lords of Cassel, who had authority over a swathe of territory from Ypres in modern Belgium to Saint-Omer.