Stickhausen Castle

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Stickhausen Castle
Stickhausen Castle

Stickhausen Castle

Creation time : around 1435
Castle type : Niederungsburg, location
Conservation status: Preserved essential parts
Standing position : Count
Place: Detern- Stickhausen
Geographical location 53 ° 13 '4.8 "  N , 7 ° 38' 35.6"  E Coordinates: 53 ° 13 '4.8 "  N , 7 ° 38' 35.6"  E
Stickhausen Castle (Lower Saxony)
Stickhausen Castle

The Stickhausen Castle lies on the western edge of the village Stickhausen, a district of the East Frisian municipality Detern in Leer district in Lower Saxony.

location

The Niederungsburg is located directly on the banks of the Jümme . This river, together with the Leda flowing by in the immediate vicinity, forms the so-called East Frisian Mesopotamia , the Leda-Jümme area. Both rivers were important trade routes in the Middle Ages and early modern times as they flowed in an east-west direction.

designation

The name of the castle as well as the place is made up of the word sticke (stick, stake) and house , meaning a house fortified with palisades.

history

In contrast to the other castles in East Friesland , Stickhausen Castle was never the seat of a chief . It was built by the Hanseatic City of Hamburg around 1435 to protect its trade routes to the west. After violent disputes, the people of Hamburg pledged it to the chief and later Count Ulrich I around 1453. The latter had the castle expanded as a replacement for the older frontier fortress in Schlüsselburg in Detern. This was part of the border fortification against the neighboring Oldenburg area and secured the entrance to East Frisia. After the Schlüsselburg was destroyed and rebuilt several times, it lost its importance after the establishment of the Stickhausen Castle and was no longer mentioned in a document.

Initially, Stickhausen Castle consisted of a stone house surrounded by a moat. There was also an outer bailey with a gate and farm buildings. The entire complex was surrounded by ramparts and a second ditch for protection.

Count Edzard I had the round tower built around 1498, which is still preserved today. Edzard's involvement in the Saxon feud led to the castle being conquered by a coalition of princes led by George of Saxony and eventually occupied for three years.

After the Reformation, Countess Anna had stones from the abandoned Barthe monastery built in 1558 to create a gun platform in the style of polygonal bastions, which was called the Dwenger (Zwinger) here. In addition, stones were brought in from Uplengen Castle , which was razed in 1535 at the behest of Enno II , and the castle building in Uplengen was completely demolished. Further building activity is attested by Count Johann II , who died here at the castle in 1591.

During the Thirty Years War , the castle was fought over several times. In the years from 1622 to 1624 the dreaded troops of the mercenary Ernst von Mansfeld held it. They strengthened the castle with several external works . After the withdrawal of the Mansfeld troops, the East Frisian counts took over the upper hand again for a short time, before the castle was again occupied by foreign troops in the years 1637 to 1640; this time from Hessian. These completed the expansion of the fortress . To do this, they built a fortified substation to complement the existing Ravelin and the actual castle. At that time, the entire complex comprised a three-wing main castle with a corner tower, the old outer bailey with the gatehouse, stable, peat barn, burgrave house and garrison church on the upper floor of the gatehouse, the kennel with powder tower and the Ravelin located south between Jümme and this upper works. To the east of this was the new substation, consisting of barracks, residential and farm buildings. There were four batteries in total , four in the upper station and one in the lower station.

After the Prussians came to power in 1744, the castle was no longer used. Frederick the Great ordered the demolition of the fortress, of which only the large round tower dated 1498 and the remains of the ramparts are preserved. In the following years, the former gate building, which was converted and expanded in 1822, became the official residence of the bailiff. An older coat of arms from 1578 can be found here on an outer wall. The tower was used as a prison and as an apartment for the bailiff. Stickhausen developed from the former substation. In 1885 the castle came into private hands. During the Second World War, the tower came under fire and was damaged in the process. In 1951 the first measures to secure the structure of the tower were taken. There was also a local history and folklore museum in the tower. On the ground floor, the dungeon cells could be viewed with torture tools such as a rack and forceps. On the first floor the living situation of the prison guard was shown; the second floor was dedicated to the history of the castle. Finally, a bird and bird egg collection was on display in the attic.

From around 1950 to the 1970s, the "Friends of Stickhausen Castle" expanded the collection with numerous teapots, pots and the like. After that, the tower was not open to the public for a long time. In 2019, the Jümme municipality bought the site. The Stickhausen Castle Association, which was also founded in 2019, is now aiming to reopen a museum in the tower at Easter 2021 and to make the area available to visitors. To this end, the tower was extensively renovated from the outside up to and including August 2020. The first thing to do for the museum is to prepare the first floor of the tower. Visitors will experience how the Gerdes family lived on the ground floor in the 19th century.

  • Stickhausen Castle 1632

  • Round tower

  • Cannon in the tower of Stickhausen Castle

  • Coat of arms in the former gatehouse

  • Coat of arms on the round tower

Regular events

  • June: Burggarten Stickhausen - large East Frisian garden market on the historic fortress grounds (since 2000)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ostfriesische Landschaft Ortschronisten Stickhausen (PDF; 556 kB)
  2. ↑ East Frisian landscape excavations in Detern
  3. ↑ Ostfriesische Landschaft Ortschronisten Großsander (PDF; 627 kB)
  4. ↑ News - Burgverein Stickhausen. Retrieved on August 17, 2020 (German).
  5. ^ "Burggarten Stickhausen" , accessed on June 18, 2012

Web links