House beams (Xanten)

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House beams

Haus Balken is a mansion in the Marienbaum district of Xanten . It stands seven kilometers northwest of Xanten on the B57 to Kalkar and emerged from a permanent house that was built at the beginning of the 15th century to secure the border. In the Eighty Years' War ruined and then rebuilt, it came at an auction to Wilhelm van Essen, who was changing the building completely. The house has been a listed building since 1987 and is now the residence of the Underberg family . It is not open to the public.

history

19th century view

In connection with the establishment of the Klever Landwehr , Duke Adolf von Kleve had a water-defended solid house built against Kurköln at the point where the road between Xanten and Kleve crossed the Landwehr to secure the border . This was first mentioned in a document in 1419 in the Klevian fiefdom register as "onse huys alsoe as dat tymmert steet tussen den tween slachboemen". Its name results from its location at two barriers , because the "Hof ten Balke" can be translated as "Hof an den Zollbalken".

Johan van der Maesen became the first tenant of the new house. In 1447 Johan van den Hoevel was sitter. After his son took over the house in 1456, the family called themselves "anghen beams" after their property. In 1496 the Tack family followed as a tenant. It remained in the possession of Haus Balken for over a century. Only when Peter Tack was unable to rebuild the facility, which had been badly damaged in the Eighty Years War for financial reasons, did he sell the ruins to his brother-in-law Adolf von Holt in 1604. After further changes of ownership, Judith von den Birgel finally sold it to Dietrich van der Brüggen in 1657. He rebuilt the ruinous house, but his family had to sell it in 1776 due to high debts. At an auction it came to lieutenant Wilhelm Heinrich van Essen, who began with a fundamental redesign of Haus Balken. In doing so, however, he took over financially, so that the building that was under construction - after van Essen had already invested over 10,000  guilders in the renovation and expansion - was offered for sale in the Duisburg intelligence ticket in 1781 .

The new owner was the mayor of Xanten, Schwarz, who acquired the property for only 6610 guilders. Only three years later he sold it to the Baron von Hertefeld in 1784 . House Balken came from his family to the related von Bothmer family in 1822 . In 1871/1872 it was sold to the entrepreneur Hubert Underberg, whose family is still the owner of Balken today.

description

The current appearance of Haus Balken is primarily the result of a renovation at the end of the 1770s. A building was changed that included the remains of a previous Gothic building . This late medieval predecessor was a fortified house that stood on an island surrounded by moats . In addition to the main house, there was also a free-standing portal , a round tower and two farm buildings. From an upstream in the north forecastle island with only one building a wooden bridge to lead main castle island , by a circular wall was framed. During excavations in 1989, parts of this wall were found.

During the changes under Wilhelm van Essen after 1776, all buildings with the exception of the main house were put down. This let van Essen expand to the south, so that it was almost twice as big as before. The result was today's rectangular structure with three floors. Its plastered and yellow-painted facades are regularly divided into five axes on the long sides by windows with house frames and green shutters . A pan-covered hip roof with dormers rises above a wide, profiled eaves cornice . A classical , wooden veranda on the south-facing garden facade was  replaced by a stone terrace in the 1890s - shaped by the castle romanticism - and rebuilt around 1950 to its current form with five wall arches. In the northern half of the house, the walls are up to a meter thick and date from the 15th century. The western part of the building has a barrel vaulted cellar , while the eastern half of the building has a cross vault supported by a central column. Remnants of the late medieval kitchen including an oven were found there in 1963.

On the west side of the building - slightly offset to the south - there is a small side wing with a square floor plan. It used to be the house chapel, which was probably set up at the end of the 18th century. Two floors rise above a basement, the upper one resulting from an increase in the building by 1800. It has a hipped roof with a wooden ridge that has served as a bell tower since the 1980s. Like the entire building, it was renewed during extensive renovations in the first half of the 1950s.

The current outer bailey buildings north of the manor house date from the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century. They replaced a farm wing and coach house built in 1813 , after the construction of which the previous buildings were closed to make space for a new driveway.

End of the 18th century, around the mansion one more morning large English landscape garden created. The moats were either filled in or widened like a pond. Today the moat is only preserved at the northeast corner of the property. The meadows outside the moat ring were included in the park planning. A small part of the park may have been occupied by a symmetrical baroque garden in the 18th century . Even today, the Balken landscape garden has old trees, which are mixed with younger plantings. There is a beech avenue , rhododendrons and box trees and taxus cut into shape .

literature

  • Friedrich Gorissen: Beam. The history of the settlement, the house and its inhabitants from the oldest news to 1872. Boss, Kleve 1991, ISBN 3-89413-333-3 .
  • Jochen Hild: Park of the manor houses in the district of Moers. In: Landkreis Moers (Hrsg.): Heimatkalender Kreis Moers 1970. Schiffer, Moers 1969, pp. 102–115, here 102–103.
  • Hermann Hinz : Archaeological investigations in the basement of Balken House, Moers district. In: Bonner Jahrbücher. Volume 164, 1964, pp. 333-344.
  • Jens Wroblewski, André Wemmers: Theiss-Burgenführer Niederrhein . Konrad Theiss , Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1612-6 , pp. 22-23 . ( online )

Web links

Commons : House Beams  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Entry by Jens Wroblewski about Haus Balken in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Frankewitz : State castles, fortresses, palaces and fortress houses up to 1500 as reflected in the written documents (= Historical Atlas of the Rhineland. Part IV / 12). Habelt, Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-7749-3519-8 , p. 38.
  2. ↑ a b c d Entry by Jens Wroblewski on Haus Balken in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
  3. ↑ vynen.de ( Memento from March 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b c d e Jens Wroblewski, André Wemmers: Theiss Burgenführer. Lower Rhine. Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1612-6 , p. 22.
  5. ^ Chronicle of the place Marienbaum ( Memento from July 26th 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Jens Wroblewski, André Wemmers: Theiss Burgenführer. Lower Rhine. Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1612-6 , p. 23.
  7. ↑ a b c Jochen Hild: Park facilities of the manor houses in the district of Moers. 1970, p. 102.

Coordinates: 51 ° 41 ′ 32 ″  N , 6 ° 23 ′ 19 ″  E