House Caen

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House Caen, courtyard side

The Caen house is a castle-like mansion on the road from Wachtendonk to Straelen in North Rhine-Westphalia . Originating from a typical Lower Rhine court festival, the manor house was completely redesigned in the 1660s by the de Varo family in the style of French pavilion locks. In the first half of the 19th century, today's English landscape garden was added according to plans by Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe .

The listed building is privately owned and cannot be visited.

description

House Caen seen from the north, with the water mill (2005)
Outer bailey with pigeon tower

The property consists of a manor house, including upstream agricultural buildings and a north-west of it situated outer bailey . Both building complexes are located in the middle of a generous, approximately 100 hectare English landscaped garden.

The manor house is surrounded on two sides by moats that are fed by the Niers . It is a two-storey plastered building with a basement and an ocher paint. Its portal is on the west side with two protruding corner projections , which are closed by high hipped roofs . These come from a renovation at the beginning of the 20th century. The hipped mansard roof of the building has curved dormer windows on all four sides .

On the second floor there is a chapel , which the Bishop of Roermond , Eugenius Albertus d'Allamont , approved in 1666. For a long time, the most remarkable interior was a fireplace made of white marble, which was originally installed on House Vlassrath and has since returned there. It was made in 1613 on the occasion of Johann von Brempt zu Vlassrath's marriage to Johanna Berghe von Trips and has an architrave with the ancestral tables of the bride and groom.

To the north-west of the manor house is the four-winged outer bailey with farm buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries. These include the old water mill, which was mentioned as early as 1370. However, today's half-timbered construction dates from around 1700. In addition, one of the few remaining pigeon towers from the first half of the 19th century belongs to the Caen outer bailey . Its courtyard-side facade has a total of 34 exit holes on the two upper floors. The tower has been used as an apartment since 1880.

In addition to some copper beeches, there are also many rare woody plants in the English landscape garden . In the northern part of the park there is a crypt that is part of a small private cemetery of the Geyr von Schweppenburg family .

history

The beginnings of the plant are in the dark. The name Caen appears in documents for the first time in 1310, when the sister of Straelener Vogts Giselbertus is referred to as "Fia, domina de Caen". Then Caen is mentioned in 1413, when a Lutger of Caen endowed a chapel founded by the Geldrian Duke Reinald IV with land.

House of Caen and its parks on a map by Michael Buyx , 1837

In 1451 Haus Caen was mentioned in a document as the possession of a Maes - the Lower Rhine abbreviation for Thomas - von Oest (also von Oyst). At that time there was a court celebrations that the nature of the Lower Rhine water castles on stilts built and then to a small castle was expanded. Via Maes' son Johann, the property passed to his sister Elisabeth in 1529. Sold by her to the Siegburg Abbey in the same year , Caen was shortly afterwards, in 1544, in the possession of Philipp von Wissels (also Wischel), who was followed by his son Engelbert. When he died in 1580, his inheritance was divided between the von Wissel and von Brempt families.

In the last quarter of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, numerous different families - sometimes even at the same time - owned the house. As a result of several land divisions and sales, Caen belonged to the von Wissel and von Quaedt-Sevenich families in the mid-17th century.

Gradually, the French Baron von Magny, Jacques Simon de Varo, and his wife Anna Margaretha von Spicker, who came from Haus Eyll , acquired the individual parts of the severely fragmented property by April 1660 and had it completely renovated and redesigned by 1666/67. This included the restoration of the silted-up trenches and the construction of a new gate by Peter Fenten. Varo had the manor house redesigned in the style of French pavilion locks and a palace chapel set up, which was consecrated in 1666. The first Caen gardens can also be traced back to that time.

Before this renovation, there was a tower with a square floor plan to the west of the castle, which was put down. However, its foundations are still preserved in the castle moat.

West view of the House of Caen 1836/37, drawing by Alexander Frans van Aefferden

In the 18th century it was converted into a “Maison de plaisance”. In 1817 Carl Ludwig Franz von Varo inherited the property from his uncle. During his time, between 1830 and 1840, the surrounding park was laid out in the English landscape style under the direction of the royal horticultural director Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe. However, today's avenue system goes back to gardens that existed at least as early as the 18th century. With Carl Ludwig's death in 1876, the Counts of Varo died out in the male line. House Caen was inherited from his cousin, Baron Rudolph Adolph Geyr von Schweppenburg, whose family is still the owner of the property today and who lived there until 2007.

The current roof of the manor house dates back to 1904 and had to be installed after a fire to replace the flat hipped roof that had existed up until then. The roofs of the risalites are also a result of this renovation work, during which a flat triangular gable was removed in the middle of the western long side of the building.

The botanical diversity in the park ensures that many, even rare, bird species live around Haus Caen. The area around the manor was declared a nature reserve Caenheide in 1955.

In October 1977 another fire damaged the watermill in the outer bailey, which was still working until 1961. But it was rebuilt until 1982.

literature

Web links

Commons : Haus Caen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Constantin von Ruys: Historical study of the fireplace in Vlaesrath. In: Niederrheinischer Geschichtsfreund. Volume 4, No. 1, 1880, p. 10 ( digitized version ).
  2. ^ Paul Clemen: The art monuments of the district of Geldern. 1891, pp. 77-78.
  3. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: Castles, palaces, mansions on the banks of the Niers. 1997 , p. 156.
  4. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2011, p. 332.
  5. ↑ a b c d Stefan Frankewitz: Castles, palaces, mansions on the banks of the Niers. 1997, p. 162.
  6. ^ Egbert Panhuysen: From the manorial court to the city of Straelen. A contribution to the history of the Lower Rhine city. Cologne 1952, p. III.
  7. ^ Adolf Kaul: Geldrische castles, palaces and mansions. 1977, p. 25.
  8. ↑ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, castles mansions along the Niers 2001, p. 321.
  9. ↑ a b Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, castles, mansions along the Niers 2001, p. 322.
  10. ^ A b Paul Clemen: The art monuments of the district of Geldern. 1891, p. 76.
  11. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: Castles, palaces, mansions on the banks of the Niers. 1997, p. 158.
  12. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2011, p. 328.
  13. ↑ a b Michael Klatt: House Caen. A memorial stands empty. In: Rheinische Post . Edition of August 11, 2014 ( online ).

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 21.5 ″  N , 6 ° 18 ′ 22.5 ″  E