House Gesselen

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House floor plan

The house Gesselen , also home te Gesselen called, is a former manor in betting , a district of the Lower Rhine town of Kevelaer . It stands on the right bank of the Niers and is one of the most fully preserved mansions on the Lower Rhine. Through various noble families , it finally came to the Counts of Hoensbroech in the 17th century , who did not use the property as a residence, but leased it for agricultural purposes. In the course of the following years, the ravages of time gnawed at the manor house of the complex, and the lowering of the groundwater level through the regulation of the Niers in the 1930s did the rest, so that Haus Gesselen was in danger of collapsing in the 1980s. Extensive renovation and restoration work from 1987 onwards saved the monument from final deterioration.

history

The complex was first mentioned in a document in 1247 with “Arnoldus miles te Gestelen”. At that time it was a Geldrian fiefdom . In 1349 a mill belonging to the property was mentioned with the "molen te Ghestelen". In 1403 House Gesselen was owned by Derik von Pallant , whose granddaughter Aleyd brought it to her husband Arndt von Eyll in 1498 . At that time the complex already consisted of a manor house , an outer bailey and two mills. Previously it was mentioned for the first time in 1424 as a house ("huys tot Gestelen"), ie as a fortified aristocratic seat. After Arnd von Eyll his two sons followed as owners.

The property passed to her husband Wilhelm von Hornum via the heiress Loeffe. He wanted to make his house available to Spanish troops during the Eighty Years War , but the governor of Geldern, who was in the Dutch service, Baron Johann Philipp von Hohensax , thwarted the plans by attacking and pillaging the Gesselen house on July 17, 1584. Von Hornum was taken prisoner and only released after a ransom of 6000  guilders in December of that year. The heavily damaged building was repaired soon after 1584 and rebuilt and expanded in 1615. In the course of this, the former stair tower on the eastern corner was demolished.

In 1648 Lyffart was enfeoffed by Asselt with the Gesselen family. His son Lyffart Engelbert sold it to Christian Meenen in 1668, who repaired it and built another oil mill . He then sold the facility in 1671 to Arnold Adriaan von und zu Hoensbroech , who also owned Hoensbroek Castle and Haag Castle . Since his family therefore did not use the house as a residence, Gesselen only remained a leasehold from that point on, which was run as a farm. In the 18th century it had a manor the Landtag ability . The outer bailey, which has been documented since 1440, was replaced by more modern buildings.

The Deselaers family purchased the property in 1932. Because of the regulation of the Niers carried out in the 1930s and the simultaneous leveling of the water ditches , the groundwater level fell dramatically, as a result of which the piling of the house began to rot. The entire building fabric was enormously unstable and the resulting considerable damage to the wall was repaired for the first time in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the stability of the building was only permanently restored after restoration work since the late 1980s with stabilizing concrete piles. The work on this was arranged by the Keuck couple, who have owned the house since 1987. The two saved the old knight's seat from final ruin.

description

Haus Gesselen is a two-storey Gothic corner building, the core of which dates from the 15th century and which was expanded to a building with a square floor plan at the beginning of the 17th century. The brick building, which is over 20 meters high, shows very well what a late medieval solid house looked like. Its basement part has a ceiling with a flat barrel vault . On the older part of the house, the ground floor is the first floor at the height of the facade on the outside window sills by a simple cornice deducted from brick. Underneath are console stones and holes in the wall. They are the remains of a former wooden battlement that surrounded the entire house and whose access was probably on the upper floor.

The southern half of the building cube has Gothic stepped gables on the east and west sides , the walls of which are 75 cm thick and - just like today's window openings - probably originate from the reconstruction of the house shortly after 1584. The gable roof with storage space in between and the loft above it has a purlin roof structure that does not need any metal nails. The north-facing gable of the medieval core building has a curved shape , which is probably the result of a revision of the former stepped gable.

The northern quarter of the house with its tail gable dates from 1615, as evidenced by its wall anchors . Although just as high as the rest of the building, this part of the building has not just two, but three storeys.

Inside, the restored upper floor is of particular art historical interest. While most of the interior walls of half-timbered exist, the few masonry brick walls have an arched frieze on. Together with a bricked -up cross- frame window , they testify that they were once outer walls before 1615 and only became inner walls when they were expanded. This fact also explains a round recess in the north wall of the south building. It is reminiscent of the stair tower that once stood there, which was demolished during the renovation.

Two open, late-Gothic chimneys in the southern “old building”, of which the one in the so-called knight's hall dates back to 1461, are of art historical significance . The liner their rear walls consists of relief terracotta -Formziegeln having figurative decorations. The bricks date from the second half of the 16th century and show the conversion of St. Hubert , the crucifixion and children riding on hobby horses as motifs . There are comparable claddings on Brüggen Castle and Rheydt Castle , but the bricks from Haus Gesselen are the best preserved of their kind in the entire Rhineland .

literature

  • Paul Clemen (Ed.): The art monuments of the district of Geldern (= The art monuments of the Rhine Province . Volume 1, Section 2). L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1891, pp. 101-102 ( digitized version ).
  • Stefan Frankewitz : The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. Boss, Geldern 2011, ISBN 978-3-941559-13-4 , pp. 481-489.
  • Sabina Gierschner, Christina Notarius: House Te Gesselen and its wall chimneys in Kevelaer-Wetten. In: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland. Vol. 6, No. 2, 1989, ISSN  0177-2619 , pp. 5-9.
  • Gregor Spohr: How nice to dream away here. Castles on the Lower Rhine. Pomp, Bottrop / Essen 2001, ISBN 3-89355-228-6 , pp. 80-81.
  • Jens Wroblewski, André Wemmers: Theiss-Burgenführer Niederrhein . Konrad Theiss , Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1612-6 , pp. 132-133 .

Web links

  • Entry by Jens Wroblewski about Haus Gesselen in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Müller: Foundation renovation of historical buildings in loose rock - causes of damage, renovation techniques, case studies. In: Castles and Palaces . Volume 36, No. 3, 1994, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 195.
  2. ↑ a b Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 481.
  3. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 482.
  4. ↑ a b Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 483.
  5. ↑ Information on Haus Gesselen at maiss-mueller.de , accessed on January 22, 2020.
  6. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 484.
  7. ↑ a b Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 485.
  8. ↑ Gregor Spohr: How nice to dream here. Castles on the Lower Rhine. 2001, p. 80.
  9. ↑ Sabina Gierschner, Christina Notarius: House Te Gesselen and its wall chimneys in Kevelaer-Wetten. 1989, p. 5.
  10. ↑ Sabina Gierschner, Christina Notarius: House Te Gesselen and its wall chimneys in Kevelaer-Wetten. 1989, p. 4.
  11. ↑ a b Marc Cattelaens: Oldest house in the country invites you to visit . In: Rheinische Post . Issued August 28, 2012.
  12. ^ Stefan Frankewitz: The Lower Rhine and its castles, mansions mansions along the Niers. 2001, p. 488.
  13. ^ Jens Wroblewski, André Wemmers: Theiss-Burgenführer Niederrhein. 2001, p. 133.
  14. ↑ Sabina Gierschner, Christina Notarius: House Te Gesselen and its wall chimneys in Kevelaer-Wetten. 1989, p. 8.

Coordinates: 51 ° 33 ′ 35.8 ″  N , 6 ° 18 ′ 32.9 ″  E