Niederberg (Erftstadt)

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Location of Niederberg in Erftstadt

Niederberg is the southernmost and second smallest district of Erftstadt in the Rhein-Erft district in North Rhine-Westphalia .

location

Niederberg lies on the right bank of the Rotbach . In the East, leads A 1 in a km at the place over and another two km to the Erft . The Bliesheim motorway junction with the A 61 is about four km to the northeast. Driveways are not far away at Weilerswist (A 61) or Euskirchen (A 1). The place is located in the catchment area of Cologne (20 km northeast) and Bonn (35 km southeast).

Niederberg (Erftstadt), left Niederberg Castle, aerial photo (2015)

Roman time

The area around Niederberg was already settled in Roman times . Roman graves, grave goods , also pottery kilns in the Rotbachtal, in which clay dishes for the military and civilian population were burned, as well as the remains of a villa rustica are evidence of the Roman settlement. A holy stone made of dragon rock strachyte found in 2005 dates from the 2nd to 3rd centuries. The base, base and base finish are preserved. The base is labeled almost identically on both sides. According to the incompletely preserved inscription, a C. Gaspena Sianius Cassius had this stone set in fulfillment of a vow. The essay and the statuette of a deity as well as her name are missing.

middle Ages

Nothing is known about the following centuries with many changes. Niederberg very likely belonged to the Villication Friesheim , which Count Emundus gave to the Cologne church around 830 and which had fallen to the cathedral canons when Archbishop Gunthar and the cathedral canons were divided in 866. In 2005, the remains of two watermills (grain mills) from the Carolingian era were discovered near the construction of the flood retention basin in the Rotbachtal near Niederberg . Dendrochronological investigations showed that the wood for the mills was felled around 816 and in the winter of 832. They are considered the oldest documented watermills in the Rhineland.

Flood retention basin

Owner and management

Niederberg, which is mentioned for the first time around 1193 as Berg or Berghe bei Friesheim in a note by the Cologne cathedral dean Ulrich, had fallen into the possession of the cathedral dean over the centuries and developed into its own manor. The center of the manorial rule was the Fronhof , which was administered by a villicus or mayor . Today's Niederberg Castle is a successor to the former Fronhof, which also included a church that became a parish church, and a later mill near the castle, the Dreikönigenmühle. It is mentioned for the first time in 1407. During the secularization of 1802 it was confiscated and sold as spiritual property. Today the old mill house has been torn down and the courtyard buildings have been converted into a residential complex.

Since the cathedral chapter, as a spiritual institution, was not allowed to pass death sentences, it set up bailiffs whose tasks included protecting people and administering justice. The Count, later the Duke of Jülich Vogt, was in Niederberg . In the division of the Jülich offices, Niederberg came to the office of Nideggen . After the death of Duke Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg in 1609, the Cologne elector Ernst tried in vain to declare the bailiwick as a reverted fiefdom and to move Niederberg to the office of Lechenich . The office of Nideggen with Niederberg remained with the Duchy of Jülich-Berg.

The Niederberg court was occupied by the Vogt (Untervogt) of Count von Jülich, with mayor and seven lay judges appointed by the dean of the cathedral. The court had the right to pronounce death sentences . Criminals were interrogated in Nideggen but sentenced in Niederberg. In the case of death sentences, the dean of the cathedral had to hang the gallows , the duke of Jülich paid the executioner . In the French era , when the courts were reorganized in 1798, the Niederberg court was repealed and the minor legal cases were assigned to the Lechenich Peace Court . The court in Cologne was responsible for criminal cases. When administrative districts based on the French model were created in 1798/1800, the municipality of Niederberg formed a mairie with Borr and Friesheim in the canton of Lechenich . The Mairie remained in Prussian times as the mayor's office, then as an office until the municipal administrative reform and the formation of the city of Erftstadt in 1969.

19th century

In the 19th century, a connection to the district road was created through the expansion of the municipal road from Lommersum via Friesheim to Lechenich. The dirt road to Borr was also made into a road. The clearing of the Niederberger bush began. Large parts were acquired by the Cologne citizen Anton Guffanti , who had the Gertrudenhof built there in 1863. Shortly before the First World War , Niederberg was connected to the electrical power grid. A water pipe was also laid around this time.

Churches

Niederberg today has two churches: St. John's Beheading was built in the 11th century as a simple hall church. Inside there are late Gothic paintings from the Cologne School of Painting in the choir . It is only occasionally used in church. The new church of St. John the Baptist was built in 1910–1913 as a neo-Gothic hall church according to plans by the Cologne cathedral master builder Bernhard Hertel . Guffanti had bequeathed the money to build the church to the parish in his will. In 1926 the parish sold a "handkerchief" with a crib picture from the Lochner School to the Cologne Diocesan Museum .

school

After the introduction of compulsory schooling , the Niederberg children attended school in Borr until Niederberg had its own school in 1859. In 1868 a school building was built, which was later expanded with an extension. After the school reform of 1968 the school was closed. The school building is now used as a village community center, with a privately operated cinema in the extension.

population

As before the end of Kurköln , in the 19th and 20th centuries until after the Second World War the inhabitants of Niederberg were almost all small farmers. The professions have changed in the following decades. The smallholder families who subsisted on agriculture now have a different livelihood. Most of them work outside of town.

Incorporation

On July 1, 1969, Niederberg was incorporated into Erftstadt.

today

In the last few decades, building land has been designated in Niederberg. New houses were built on the edge of the old town. Niederberg had around 190 inhabitants around 1800, today there are 564 (as of March 31, 2018). Nevertheless, the few shops and restaurants in the village have now been closed. The residents are dependent on the neighboring towns for shopping. Niederberg is integrated into regional traffic by buses. The Internet connection via DSL was previously insufficient due to the great distances to the nearest exchanges. The small provider EFN eifel-net Internet-Provider GmbH carried out a rudimentary expansion of its CuDSL offer with on-site technology housings in the 2000s , which can only offer a maximum of 50 Mbit / s for download in the best cases, but usually significantly less . In addition, many residents were dissatisfied with the Drossel tariffs and the poor customer service of this provider. Since 2018, however, Vodafone has been expanding FTTH , which means that the location, which has been undersupplied for years, has made a huge leap in terms of bandwidth and gigabit connections can be offered.

Personalities

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Petra Tutlies, Claus Weber: Archeology in Erftstadt. Reports on excavations, observations and finds from the years 2005 to 2016. Yearbook of the City of Erftstadt 2018. Erftstadt 2017. pp. 98–100
  2. ↑ Petra Tutlies, Claus Weber: Archeology in Erftstadt. Reports on excavations, observations and finds from the years 2005 to 2016. Yearbook of the City of Erftstadt 2018. Erftstadt 2017. pp. 108–109
  3. ↑ Martin Bünermann: The communities of the first reorganization program in North Rhine-Westphalia . Deutscher Gemeindeverlag, Cologne 1970, p. 86 .
  4. ↑ http://www.erftstadt.de/web/infos-zu-erftstadt/die-stadt-in-zahlen
  5. ↑ https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/erftstadt-archiv/internet-in-erftstadt-buerger-klagen-ueber-lahmes-netz---eifelnet-bescheinigt-gute-werte-25148458
  6. ↑ https://newsroom.unitymedia.de/pressemitteilungen/spatenstich-fuer-highspeed-internet-in-erftstadt-netzausbau-gestartet-unitymedia-bringt-niederberg-und-borr-ans-schnelle-netz/
  7. ↑ https://scheuren-online-ev.de/2018/11/15/beginn-einer-neuen-aera-in-erftstadt-der-kleinste-ortteile-scheuren-wurde-erverbindreich-an-das-schnellste-internet -connected /
  8. ↑ https://www.golem.de/news/fttb-unitymedia-baut-z together- mit-anwohnern-glasfaser-aus- 1811-137773.html

literature

Coordinates: 50 ° 44 '  N , 6 ° 46'  E