Baesweiler Castle

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Baesweiler Castle Cultural Center, front view, April 2006

The Burg Baesweiler is a castle in the city center Baesweilers in the Aachen region . The former moated castle has been a listed building since 1988 and has been used since March 2006 as a cultural center along with a city library, a collection of knight armor and a restaurant area with regular events such as cabaret , concerts, exhibitions and communal cinema. The symbol of the castle and the city is a metal lion plastic .

Building description

Baesweiler Castle is a two-storey, four-winged brick complex on a trapezoidal floor plan and the example of a four-sided courtyard typical of the Rhineland . Based on the fact that their former house is structurally directly connected to the former farm buildings, it can be seen that the complex used to be the seat of a family from the lower landed aristocrats, as the spatial separation of the manor house and the farm buildings was common in high-class residences .

A stone bridge leads to the ogival main portal of the castle , which is framed by a blue border and crowned with the coats of arms of the families "von Randerath" (formerly "von Randeradt") and "von Schilling". On the side of the inner courtyard there is a gallery above the archway as access to the rooms on the upper floor of the castle.

The oldest part of today's complex is a simple residential building with corner blocks from the 16th century, which connects to the north of the entrance portal. Attached to it is an octagonal stair tower facing the courtyard , which in the 18th century still had a slim onion dome. The remaining wings of the castle complex - the former farm buildings - are mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries.

history

The origins of the castle lie in a fortified estate that was a Jülich fief . Its builders were the Lords of Baesweiler, who, as was customary at the time, named themselves after their place of residence. After it became extinct, the property first passed to the “ Broich von Husen ” family and then to numerous other owners over the next two centuries.

At the beginning of the 16th century, Johann von Hillensberg sold the property to Johann von Randerath, who was a descendant of the former noblemen of Raderath and already owned the neighboring fiefdom of Floverich. His younger son Jacob, together with his wife Anna von Schilling, had the Hofgut expanded and converted into a moated castle in the 1560s, which is evidenced by their joint marriage coat of arms above today's gate. Their only son Johann reached 1567/68 the conversion of possession of a fief to a common fief and made in this way that henceforth and female family members were entitled to inherit, before the castle Baesweiler with household Floverich in 1578 against the house Horrig exchanged in Süggerath that belonged to his uncle Herrmann von Randerath.

With Hermann's son Johann, who was enfeoffed with Baesweiler Castle by Duke Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg in October 1596 , however, the gradual decline of the von Randerath family and thus their property began in 1608. The main reasons for this are to be found in Baesweiler's numerous warlike entanglements as part of the Jülich region. Both the Jülich-Klevische Succession dispute and the Thirty Years' War resulted in several looting of the castle and the land belonging to it, which resulted in ever increasing debts of the castle owners.

After Johann von Randerath's death in 1633, his son Werner took on an inheritance that was already heavily in debt and had to take on further pledges on the Baesweiler and Floverich property in order to ensure the livelihood of his family. After his death in 1659, he left five underage children, for whose livelihood his widow Elisabeth had to sell piece by piece of the land.

After Elisabeth's sons Ludger Hermann and Jost Emund von Randerath came of age, they were forced to sell the Floverich fiefdom in 1682 to the Carthusian monastery at Vogelsang near Jülich. The remaining Baesweiler fiefdom was too small to offer them a livelihood. They went into foreign military service in order to have an income in this way, while they leased the castle and the associated lands.

Ludger Hermann von Randerath fell on Morea in the fight against the Turks , and so Jost Emund became the sole owner of Baesweiler Castle. He tried to keep the family property, but ultimately without success, because after his death in 1711, his heir Reiner de Mathajon sold the castle complex in February 1713 to the baron Franz Carl von Nesselrode zu Ehreshoven .

He had the heavily dilapidated and outdated castle renovated and redesigned from 1715 in order to be able to call it “a stable and the noblest Halffmansguth to be found in the country” and then lease it profitably for agricultural purposes.

Ink drawing of Baesweiler Castle by Renier Roidkin from 1726

From the time shortly after the renovation, two inked pen drawings by the painter Renier Roidkin from 1726 have been preserved, which provide information about the condition of the complex at that time. According to this, the gabled manor house at that time had narrow loopholes facing the castle gate with house borders, which were later replaced by windows. On the north side of the house there were three large cross-lattice windows in the basement. They were positioned below a block frieze, which is only partially preserved today, as it was removed in places in later years in favor of larger windows. On the upper floor of the residential building, three narrow, split windows with house surrounds provided daylight. The current east wing also comes from the renovation work of the 18th century; just like the courtyard-facing gallery above the gate entrance, which was probably rebuilt on the old foundation walls.

During the renovation work, the castle pond was partially reduced in size to make room for larger farm buildings. In the south of the castle the pond enlarged to a pond, in the middle of which there was a small island. The castle pond and pond were still preserved in the middle of the 19th century, but are now completely filled.

The Urkataster Baesweilers from 1813 still shows a second castle access with bridge in the east of the plant, which is, however, no longer preserved.

Baesweiler Castle was used for agriculture until 2002, before it was converted into an urban cultural center in 2005 and 2006. The work required for this included, among other things, the demolition of the annexes that were not listed, the gutting of the living areas, the barn and the stables, the complete renovation of the masonry and the creation of numerous parking spaces and a greening concept. The opening of the cultural center took place in March 2006. There is also a city library there.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Peschke: Bulletin No. 6/2003 of the Baesweiler History Association ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

literature

  • Baesweiler history association: noble residence - farm - cultural center. Baesweiler Castle . Baesweiler 2006.
  • Werner Reinartz: home book of the community Baesweiler . Baesweiler community, Baesweiler 1961, pp. 131–193.

Web links

Commons : Burg Baesweiler  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 54 ′ 29.5 ″  N , 6 ° 10 ′ 59 ″  E