House Diesdonk

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House Diesdonk on a lithograph from the 1860s

The Diesdonk house is a former knight's seat on the Lower Rhine , which was eligible for state assembly in the 19th century . It is located on the road between the city of Geldern and its district of Pont on the western bank of the Niers .

First mentioned in a document at the beginning of the 15th century, the estate was in the hands of various noble families from the Lower Rhine area before it came to the French Beaufort family at the end of the 19th century. The structure of the building changed very much in the 1970s, it is now privately owned and cannot be visited.

Residents and owners

Diesdonk was first mentioned in a document in 1415 when Wolter the Hertogh sold it to Elbert von Eyll. The buyer was the son of the same name rent master of the Duchy of Geldern , who lived on the neighboring Ingenray house . Since Diesdonk is mentioned in the sales contract without any additions, it is unclear whether the deal only changed hands of land or whether buildings were also included. From the von Eyll family, the property came to the von Egeren family for reasons unknown up to now. The exact date of the change of ownership is just as little known as the reasons, but it is certain that in 1567 Loef von Egeren and his wife Margret Inge Haeff received the Dyeßdonck law through an inheritance agreement . This also meant the first written mention of a building at this location.

Heirs of Loef von Egeren were Arnold von Wyenhorst and the Rittmeister Herrmann van Keulken, who appeared as the owner of the estate in 1667. After captain Henrich Ricwyn van Keulken was named as the owner of the estate in 1695 , it was used as the residence of Gottfried Albert von Steinen and his two daughters as early as 1724. He sold the Diesdonk house to Major General Alexandre de Beaufort , who came from the French town of Meaux , and whose descendants kept the property until 1839. In 1838, Julius Alexandre, the last owner of Diesdonk from the Beaufort family, died. His heirs brought the estate up for public auction in 1839, when Baron Johann Friedrich Hubert Effertz, owner of the Hombroich estate near Neuss , bought it. Johann's son Friedrich Hubert and his wife Wilhelmine Halley set up a chapel at House Diesdonk , in which a mass was read for the first time on September 12, 1881 and which was only dissolved in 1970. Due to the numerous alterations to the building, it has completely disappeared today.

The youngest of the couple's four daughters, Elisabeth, inherited the property after her mother's death in 1902 and married her husband Walter Düesberg. Their son Otto sold it in 1970 to Willi van den Loo from Geldern, who in 1973 sold it on to the “castle king” Herbert Hillebrand . The entrepreneur had the building converted and then rented it out to the Muuss couple, who ran a swingers club there for two years from January 1980 . At that time, Hillebrand received harsh criticism from the German Castle Association for the type of use . After the facility was used as a retirement home from September 1984, it has been used as a residential building again since the late 1990s.

Building history

House Diesdonk as a four-wing complex on a cadastral map from around 1895

The appearance of the first buildings is unknown. On the so-called Tranchot map from the beginning of the 19th century, the Diesdonk house is shown as a three-winged complex with a horseshoe open to the east. This complex was later expanded into a closed four-wing complex with additions to the east. Dendrochronological investigations on some oak piles of the pile grid under the north wing suggest that construction work took place on the northern part of the house at the beginning of the 17th century, as the year 1615 (± 5 years) was established as the felling date for three of the piles. Further construction work probably took place in the 19th century under the Effertz family, as the design of the weather vane of the gate tower suggests. At that time the outer facade of the west wing presented itself with two glass oriels .

After being damaged in World War II , the buildings were poorly repaired. Around 1970 the south and east wings were demolished and the remaining buildings were fundamentally redesigned. As a result, House Diesdonk lost its monument status, with the exception of the gate tower .

description

Of the buildings of the former aristocratic residence, only two two -storey building wings, which abut at right angles and are painted white, are preserved today. The majority of the building fabric dates from the 19th century. Only the listed gate tower of the house is older and dates from the 18th century.

Of about 46 meters long and 13 meters wide north wing has a dark tiles thatched hipped roof with narrow dormers . In earlier times it served economic purposes. At the western end to the south, it is joined by the narrower, 26-meter-long and 8-meter-wide west wing with a gable roof . Three meters of its length are taken up by the gate structure with its arched gate passage. The three-storey brick building has a pyramid roof with a small onion dome and a final weather vane, which shows the initials of Friedrich Effertz and his wife Cecilia Schopen as well as the year 1840. The gate tower is not in the center of the western front of the house, but rather forms the connection between the north and south parts of the west wing. An approximately 185-meter-long, almost straight alley leads to it, which runs through the small landscape park from the 19th century to the west of the house . The other green spaces surrounding House Diesdonk date from the 20th century.

literature

  • Albert von Bönninghausen: House Diesdonk and the Beauforts. In: Historical Association for Geldern and Surroundings (ed.): Geldrischer Heimatkalender 1957. Schiffer [u. a.], Geldern, Rheinberg 1956, pp. 33-36.
  • Alexander Duncker : The rural residences, castles and residences of the knightly landowners in the Prussian monarchy together with the royal family, house, Fideicommiss and Schattull goods. Volume 10. Duncker, Berlin 1867/68 ( digitized version ).
  • Stefan Frankewitz : The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers (= Geldrisches Archiv. Volume 11). Boss, Geldern 2011, ISBN 978-3-941559-13-4 , pp. 411-416.
  • Stefan Frankewitz: The monuments of the city of Geldern (= Geldrisches Archive. Volume 6). Boss, Geldern 2001, ISBN 3-933969-12-3 , pp. 288–290, 428.
  • Adolf Kaul: Geldrische castles, palaces and mansions (= publications of the historical association for Geldern and the surrounding area . Volume 76). Butzon and Bercker, Kevelaer 1976, ISBN 3-7666-8952-5 , pp. 32-34.

Web links

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

References and comments

  1. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 411.
  2. ↑ Copy of a copy from the 19th century in the Historisch Centrum Limburg in Maastricht, which is in the city archive of Geldern.
  3. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 412.
  4. ↑ Alexander Duncker: The rural residences, castles and residences of the knightly landowners in the Prussian monarchy ... 1867/68, o. P.
  5. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 413.
  6. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The monuments of the city of Geldern. 2001, p. 209.
  7. ↑ star . No. 46, 1992, ISSN  0039-1239 , p. 27.
  8. ↑ a b Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 414.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Information based on the Diesdonk cadastral map available online in the city of Geldern's geoportal at geoportal-niederrhein.de
  10. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 416.

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 56.3 "  N , 6 ° 18 ′ 20.7"  E