Laurenzberg Castle

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Laurenzberg Castle
Drawing of Laurenzberg Castle around 1900

Drawing of Laurenzberg Castle around 1900

Alternative name (s): Burg Sankt Laurenzberg, Laurenzburg, Burg Berg, Burg Berghe, Burg Schwalmersberg, Burg Siegersberg, Schwalmersburg, Siegersburg, Ten Bergen
Creation time : 14th Century
Castle type : Niederungsburg
Conservation status: tore off
Construction: Quarry stone, brick
Place: Eschweiler
Geographical location 50 ° 51 '54.2 "  N , 6 ° 14' 57.8"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 51 '54.2 "  N , 6 ° 14' 57.8"  E
Laurenzberg Castle (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Laurenzberg Castle

The castle Laurenzberg was a Wasserburg on the southern outskirts of abgebaggerten in the 1970s village Laurenzberg , a district of Eschweiler . The small complex was known by numerous names throughout history, such as Burg Berg , Schwalmersburg , Burg Siegersberg and Ten Bergen .

history

The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1347 when Reinhard von Schönau and the court belonging to it gave it to the Cologne cathedral chapter as a fief . It then came to Seger von Schwalmen in the 15th century, whether through purchase or as a dowry from his wife is unclear. The complex was also named Burg Siegersberg and Burg Schwalmersberg after him . Fulsgin von Schwalmen brought castle and rule into her marriage to Johann I von Palant , Lord of Breitenbend, in 1422 . His family remained the owners until the 17th century. The couple's son, Johann II von Palant, probably built the gate tower at the time. This is indicated by the coats of arms of Johann II and his wife Katharina von Roetzelaer, which were located by the fireplace and on the beamed ceiling of the room on the first floor of the tower.

When one of her descendants, also named Johann, died in 1533, the estate was divided among his eleven children. Laurenzberg Castle went to Johann's oldest son Werner. He and his wife Margarethe von dem Bongart had it fundamentally changed. During the Jülich feud , the facility burned down in 1542, but was subsequently rebuilt.

In 1611 the widow Anna von Gertzen, married von Palant, bequeathed the property to the descendants of her two sisters Maria and Elisabeth, namely Daem (Damian) von Harff, Johann von Gymnich zu Vischel, Adam von Gymnich, after the death of their two sons Johann and Wilhelm to Dreiborn and Johann von Binsfeld . With the exception of Harff's share, the property later came to the von Wachtendonk family and, after their extinction in 1731, to the descendants of the Daem von Harff. In 1741 there were several families: von Harff, von Spieß zu Allner and von Rohe- Drove . Due to this division, the castle seems to have run down, at least after the 16th century there was no more maintenance work. The Baron Clemens August von Hersel united possession by purchases in the years 1767, 1768 and 1772 again in one hand. Together with his wife Maria Anna von Bourscheidt zu Merödgen , he had extensive renovations carried out, during which large parts of the old system were replaced by new buildings. The couple's alliance coat of arms above the gateway along with the year 1773 testified to this. The younger daughter Maria Anna bequeathed the castle to her nephew, Count Edmund von Hatzfeld -Wildenburg-Weisweiler, when she died . On June 28, 1845, Duke Prosper Ludwig von Arenberg followed as the owner , who leased Laurenzberg Castle from 1884 along with 25  acres of land. Subsequently, the facility was owned by Duke Engelbert-Maria von Arenberg until at least 1927 . In that year there were plans to sell them to the Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein .

Like the entire town of Laurenzberg, the small facility disappeared from the map in 1972 when it was dredged for the Zukunft -West opencast mine .

description

Floor plan of Laurenzberg Castle

Laurenzberg Castle was a closed four-wing complex made of broken stone and brick . It had a rectangular floor plan measuring about 59 × 46.5 meters and was surrounded by wide moats that were fed by the Merzbach . Three of its corners were marked by massive round towers , the fourth tower on the northwest corner had already been dismantled at the beginning of the 20th century. Its stones were used during the renovation in the 18th century.

A baroque , square gate tower with corner blocks, to which a bridge led, provided access on the north side . Its walls were 1.35 meters thick and the three floors were covered by a slate-roofed, curved hood . The interior of the first and second floors were each occupied by a single room. While the first floor had a beamed ceiling, the second floor was closed off by a star vault with high Gothic profiles. In both rooms there were chimneys made of bluestone , of which the one on the first floor showed the coats of arms of the Palant and Roetzelaer families, which were repeated on the ceiling beams.

The residential wing was connected to the gate tower on the east side. It replaced the former palace of the plant that took up its entire south side and later served as a barn. The elongated building had connections to the corner towers flanking it in the southwest and southeast. Initially multi-storey, the former upper floors had already been demolished at the beginning of the 20th century and the wing consisted only of a filled-in cellar and a ground floor. Its outer facade had seven transverse floor windows that had a clearance height of two meters. The lintel of the entrance on the courtyard side made of red sandstone showed the alliance coat of arms Werner von Palants and his wife Margarethe von Bongart and identified the couple as the builder.

The three remaining brick corner towers were two-story and decorated with a cornice . Its roof had been removed over time. Its low quarry stone basement was closed off by a domed vault, while the ground floor had a ribbed vault . Loopholes testified to the defensive strength of the buildings, the walls of which were so thick that the stairs to the upper floors were in the wall thickness. The southwest tower was the largest of the towers and had walls 2.5 meters thick. There was a plain fireplace on the north side of its interior. The round southeast tower of the complex, however, was less defensive. A staircase led from its ground floor to the curtain wall to what was presumably a battlement .

literature

Footnotes

  1. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages. Floor plan lexicon . Flechsig, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , p. 359.
  2. ↑ Cf. Gisela Meyer: The Palant family in the Middle Ages . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-35852-0 , p. 260, footnote 2 ( digitized version ).
  3. ↑ a b K. Franck-Oberaspach: The art monuments of the Jülich district. 1902, p. 153.
  4. ^ Gisela Meyer: The Palant family in the Middle Ages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-35852-0 , p. 260 ( digitized version ).
  5. ^ W. Zimmermann, F. von Klocke: Handbook of historical sites. 1963 p. 393.
  6. ↑ K. Franck-Oberaspach: The art monuments of the Jülich district . 1902, p. 154.
  7. ↑ a b c d C. Lenz: The Laurenzberger Castle and its history . 1927, no p.
  8. ↑ The information is based on the floor plan published in Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreis Jülich and the corresponding scale.
  9. ↑ K. Franck-Oberaspach: The art monuments of the Jülich district. 1902, p. 155.
  10. ↑ a b K. Franck-Oberaspach: The art monuments of the Jülich district. 1902, p. 156.