Diepenbrock Castle

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Front of the mansion

Diepenbrock Castle , also called Diepenbrock House, is a small moated castle near Barlo , a village belonging to Bocholt near the Dutch border in the Borken district , North Rhine-Westphalia . The property got its name from the Westphalian expression for the impassable swampy landscape that once surrounded it: “diepen brock” means something like “deep break”.

description

The mansion of the castle from the northwest
The former gatehouse

The entire castle area is surrounded in the north, east and south by a moat that merges into an elongated castle pond on the west side .

building

Designed in the style of the Baroque held mansion of the castle stands on its own little island, by a moat is separated from the other castle buildings. The building is a rectangular structure measuring 15.5 by 25.26 meters with two floors, which is closed off by a high hipped roof. Its oldest structure probably dates back to the 15th century and can be found in today's southeast corner room and in the middle room of the ground floor. At the diagonally opposite south-west and north-east corners, the building has a round corner tower with a flat conical helmet and a few notches . On the north side a small flight of stairs with a bridge leads to the entrance of the house. Its light sandstone , together with the window walls, stands out well against the yellow paint on the facade.

To the north and west of the manor house are the buildings of the former estate. This includes a farm building from 1710 and a brick gatehouse from 1532 with a three-step gable. The drawbridge leading to it bridges the outer moats, but is now without function, as the arched gate openings of the building no longer serve as an entrance, but are provided with window panes.

park

The castle is surrounded by an extensive park that is open to the public outside the inner castle moat. Although it dates from the Baroque period, it is very similar to a landscape garden with its large lawns and some smaller flower beds . Even if its current appearance goes back to restoration work in the 1980s, it still has some very old trees, including ancient yew trees , weeping willows , cypresses and a tulip tree and a sequoia tree .

history

Stages of construction of the manor house

The Lords of Diepenbrock are mentioned in documents from the 12th century. However, it is not clear whether a house of the same name already existed at that time. In 1268 Heinrich von Diepenbrock is attested as the owner. As a permanent house it was first mentioned in a document in 1326 as an Arnhem fiefdom owned by Gerhard von Diepenbrock. In 1520 it came to the Utrecht family of her husband, Zeyne von Welfelde (also written as Welfeld, Welfeldt and Welveld) through the marriage of Anna, the heir to Gert von Diepenbrock . It remained in Diepenbrock's possession for the next two centuries and had the facility expanded and rebuilt several times during this time. The rectangular building of the permanent house was expanded to the north. A round north-east tower with a chapel on the ground floor and today's north-east rooms in the basement and ground floor were added so that the building had an L-shaped floor plan. The two wings of the building together with a wall enclosed a small inner courtyard, which lay northwest of the house. In the corner on the courtyard side, formed by the wings of the building, there was a small square stair tower , which towered over the building by three floors and had a slate-covered Welsche dome . The storeys of the round tower, which had a steep conical helmet as a roof, were separated from each other on the outer facade by friezes . On the north facade of the house there was a small protruding bay window to the left of the entrance .

In a second expansion, the small courtyard was built over, so that the Diepenbrock house then had an almost square floor plan. At that time there was a coat of arms stone or a house inscription above the portal . As with the north-eastern round tower , the location of the storeys on the extension could be seen from the outside by means of friezes.

Drawing of the castle before the renovation from 1736

In a third construction phase, the building was expanded to include today's northeastern part, including the mighty round tower at the southwest corner. Enlarged by about a third of its previous structure, it had reached its current size. After the extension, the manor house had a bay window with three windows on the north and west façades that stood on protruding stone consoles. A slender, octagonal tower with a Welscher dome and lantern protruded from the western side of the roof, and a staircase made the floors of the new extension accessible. The appearance of the facility after this third expansion is documented by a drawing from the last quarter of the 17th century. It shows that the old moated castle had gradually lost its ability to defend itself through various additions and had become a residential palace.

After the direct line of those of Welfelde died out in 1717, Johann Zeger von Welfelde sold the property together with the debts on it in 1732 to the Westphalian baron Johann Anton Franz von Graes zu Loburg , whose family is still the owner of the building today. Starting in 1736, he had what was then rebuilt in the Baroque style, essentially giving it its present-day appearance. The four components from the 15th to 17th centuries were combined into a single structure and united under one roof. The conversion was intended to create a previously unavailable uniformity and regularity of the system. The third floor of the south-west tower was removed so that both corner towers were the same height, and the bay windows on the outside were removed. The building was encased with a 24 cm thick wall and the window axes were arranged symmetrically. In addition, the new owner had the destroyed castle chapel restored inside. The garden was also integrated into the baroque concept. From 1749 to 1765, the surveyor Johann Heinrich Berteling worked at Diepenbrock Castle. Coming from the north, an avenue was laid out along the central axis, which continued south of the manor house in the geometrically laid out garden at the time. At the same time, the half-timbered barn was built northwest of the manor house.

Engraving of the castle, before 1837

Johann Anton's grandson Ferdinand von Graes inherited the property shortly after 1800. His marriage to Anna Karoline von Kolff auf Billerbeck in 1811 did not result in any children, so Ferdinand's nephew, Clemens Goswin von Beesten, inherited the castle in 1871/73. He subsequently took the name Graes.

The current lords of the castle had the complex completely restored and modernized from the 1970s . It was important to ensure that the centuries-old interior was preserved, so that furniture and architectural elements from the Rococo period are still present in the rooms today. In addition, there was a new brick building which, together with some surrounding buildings, housed a hotel-restaurant until 2012. The former gatehouse is now used for residential purposes.

In the course of the work, the palace gardens were also restored. The task was to clean 20,000 cubic meters of ponds, to renew 2500 meters of embankment and to redesign 5200 square meters of plaza and path areas. In addition, 23,000 square meters of lawn were created and 14,000 square meters of other parking areas were replanted.

literature

  • Erich Boldt: Diepenbrock House and its architecture from the point of view of monument preservation . In: Our Bocholt . No. 2, 1974, ISSN  0566-2575 , pp. 5-14.
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia. Volume 2: Westphalia . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1969, p. 35.
  • Hans Georg Dippel: Baroque gardens, then and now. Thoughts on the redesign of the gardens and parks at Haus Diepenbrock . In: Our Bocholt . No. 2, 1974, ISSN  0566-2575 , pp. 26-28.
  • Edgar Jetter: Restoration of the interior including the furniture . In: Our Bocholt . No. 2, 1974, ISSN  0566-2575 , pp. 20-23.
  • Franz-Josef Lensing: House Diepenbrock. An old view rediscovered . In: Our Bocholt . No. 1, 1987, ISSN  0566-2575 , pp. 17-20.
  • Erich Tönspeterotto, Birgit Cremers-Schiemann: Castles in the Münsterland . Artcolor, Hamm 1994, ISBN 3-89261-125-4 , pp. 76-77.
  • Maximilian Freiherr von Twickel: Diepenbrock and its owners . In: Our Bocholt . No. 2, 1974, ISSN  0566-2575 , pp. 2-5.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Diepenbrock  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b westfalen-adelssitze.de ( Memento from January 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ F.-J. Lensing: Diepenbrock House. An old view rediscovered. 1987, p. 17.
  3. ↑ G. Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. 1969, p. 35.
  4. ↑ Klemens Becker: Bocholt from the primeval landscape to the city. A walk through the history of our closer home . Drei Linden Verlag, Bocholt 1962, p. 42.
  5. ↑ F.-J. Lensing: Diepenbrock House. An old view rediscovered. 1987, p. 19.
  6. ↑ Information according to F.-J. Lensing: Diepenbrock House. An old view rediscovered. 1987, p. 17. In the literature, however, different sales years are mentioned. It can also be found in 1733 and 1735.
  7. ↑ F.-J. Lensing: Diepenbrock House. An old view rediscovered. 1987, p. 20.
  8. ^ Regional Association Westphalia-Lippe: Building and Park Haus Diepenbrock in LWL GeodatenKultur

Coordinates: 51 ° 52 ′ 35.5 "  N , 6 ° 39 ′ 23.5"  E