Gimborn Castle

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Gimborn Castle

The Gimborn Castle is a castle in the Gimborn district of the Marienheide municipality in the Oberbergisches Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia , Germany . The castle is located in a remote valley of the upper Leppe at 278 meters above sea ​​level . The facility has been owned by the Barons von Fürstenberg zu Gimborn since 1874 .

The castle has served as a conference and meeting place for the International Police Association since 1969 . Once a year it opens its doors for the shooting festival of the Gimborner St. Sebastianus shooting society .

history

Gimborn was pledged by Count von Berg to Count von der Mark in 1273 and from 1631 it was the residence of the Grafschaft Gimborn -Neustadt of the House of Schwarzenberg . Since the princes resided in Vienna and Bohemia, the Gimborner Palace was used as the official residence of the princely governors.

In 1782, Prince zu Schwarzenberg sold the Gimborn-Neustadt estate to Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden , a natural son of King George II of Great Britain , Elector of Hanover. A year later, Emperor Joseph II raised him to the rank of Count of Wallmoden-Gimborn. In 1793, a daughter of Wallmoden, Wilhelmine, married the later Prussian state reformer Freiherr vom Stein . Wallmoden had to surrender to the invading Napoleonic troops in 1803 as commander in chief of the Electorate of Hanover. With the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the rule of Gimborn was assigned to the Grand Duchy of Berg through the Rheinbund Act , which Napoleon transferred to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat . Wallmoden's heirs sold the castle and land to the Counts of Merveldt in 1813 , who sold them to the Counts of Stolberg-Stolberg in 1835 . In 1874, Baron Franz-Egon von Fürstenberg , who came from Körtlinghausen Castle in the Sauerland, bought the castle and the associated agricultural and forestry property from them. The von Fürstenberg family owns the castle and estate to this day. The castle has served as a conference and meeting place for the International Police Association since 1969 . The castle opens its doors once a year for the shooting festival of the Gimborner St. Sebastianus shooting society .

Architecture and equipment

Garden side with pond

Contrary to all previous claims of the most diverse literature, even of recent times, the moat was never fed by the strong spring under the "thick" southwest tower. The former moat was a diversion of the Gimbach flowing east. All that remains of the former castle complex is the remains of the main tower in the north-eastern corner of the current main house and the defensive wall on which the neighboring house and the elongated northern economic wing (1741), which is arranged across the castle, are apparently placed. The spring under the castle tower was always led directly into the castle pond.

In later construction phases, after the introduction of firearms, the defenses, which had lost their military importance, were reduced or rebuilt in favor of representative elements. The present castle was never a moated castle; the ditch on the northwest side of the palace complex was only used to keep the floor below street level dry.

The chain rollers of a former drawbridge, which are still visible today, are in this respect not a relic of a bridge spanning a moat, but rather those of the new castle entrance with the construction of the new main house with construction beginning around 1600. The complex is therefore correctly to be regarded as a completely normal castle.

literature

Gimborn Castle in winter
  • Hans-Jochen Baudach: Gimborn and its history . 2010.
  • Hans-Jochen Baudach: Building history of the palace complex and Gimborn Palace . In: Bergischer Geschichtsverein: Contributions to the Oberbergischen history . Volume 10. Bergisches Geschichtsverein, 2010.
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . North Rhine-Westphalia . Volume 1: Rhineland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin 1967, p. 203.
  • Robert Janke, Harald Herzog: Castles and palaces in the Rhineland . Greven, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-7743-0368-1 , pp. 162-163.
  • Oskar Osberghaus: Gimborn . In: Walter Zimmermann, Hugo Borger (Hrsg.): Handbook of the historical sites of Germany . Volume 3: North Rhine-Westphalia. Kröner, Stuttgart 1963, pp. 223-224.
  • Hermann Maria Wollschläger: Castles and palaces in the Bergisches Land . 2nd Edition. Wienand, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-87909-242-7 , pp. 54-57.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Gimborn  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Baudach, 3rd and 4th map around 1700, page 13 in the building history of the palace complex and Gimborn palace in Contributions to the Oberbergische Geschichte . Volume 10

Coordinates: 51 ° 3 ′ 38.9 ″  N , 7 ° 28 ′ 32.9 ″  E