House Vorst

House Vorst
	Castle building in the courtyard
Castle type :	Hilltop castle
Conservation status:	Well
Standing position :	Knight's seat
Place:	Leichlingen (Rhineland)
Geographical location	51 ° 5 '22 " N , 7 ° 1' 12.5" E Coordinates: 51 ° 5 '22 " N , 7 ° 1' 12.5" E
Height:	82 m above sea level NHN

Haus Vorst is a well-preserved hilltop castle in the western Bergisches Land at the transition to the Rhine plain .

location

The castle is located in the south of the city of Leichlingen (Rhineland) on the border with the Leverkusen district of Bergisch Neukirchen . It rises on a wooded hill, the Vorster Busch , above a loop of the Wupper on the right side of the river. Haus Vorst can be reached from the center of Leichlingen via Haus-Vorster-Weg .

Defense tower

Exterior view with entrance

history

The history of the Vorst family presumably begins in the 11th century. However , the later castle was not mentioned in a document until 1297 as the court of a Hermanus de Foresto. In the following centuries it served as a knight's seat until it was burned down by French troops around 1795. After that, the complex was used as a hunting lodge .

present

The castle is entered via the neck ditch through the castle gate with attached gatekeeper house in the west. The round keep is located in the southern courtyard, while the manor house , built in the years 1832–1834 in neo-Gothic style on the foundations of the old palace, is located north of the courtyard.

In 1948 the painter Werner Peiner bought the castle and restored it. Until his death, he partly used the rooms as a studio . Until the end of 2014, the castle, which was entered in the list of monuments of the city of Leichlingen in 1984, was owned by the Albanus family . The Friends of Art and Culture at Haus Vorst eV organized exhibitions and concerts on the castle grounds. In 2015 the castle was sold to a private person. The castle has been used as a private residence ever since. The new owner no longer allows the public to enter the facility.

literature

Franz Petri , Georg Droege , Friedrich von Klocke, Johannes Bauermann (eds.), Klaus Flink: Handbook of the historical sites of Germany . Volume 3: North Rhine-Westphalia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 273). 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1970, DNB 456882855 .
Paul Clemen : The art monuments of the district of Cologne (= The art monuments of the Rhine province . Volume 4 , part 1). Schwann, Düsseldorf 1897 (reprinted by Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann-Bagel, 1983).

Web links

Haus Vorst - The official website ( Memento from October 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (information about the castle and the painter Werner Peiner )
Haus Vorst on geschichte-leichlingen.de