Herten Castle

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Aerial photo 2016
View of the castle from the southwest

The Herten Castle is a moated castle on the western edge of Hertener city center in the district of Recklinghausen . It lies in the middle of an old English landscape garden and was first mentioned in documents in 1376. The main building of the palace complex has been a listed building since 1962 .

The current buildings were built in the 16th and 17th centuries by the Coesfeld builder Henric de Suer and his son Johann for the von Stecke and von Nesselrode families . After the main building was given up as a residence after the First World War , it fell into disrepair and threatened to collapse due to mine damage. Only a thorough renovation by the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe from 1974 to 1989 saved the late Gothic complex from complete decay.

history

Residents and owners

The von Herten family, feudal men of Werden Abbey , was first mentioned in 1286 with Gerlach von Hertene. Her residence at that time is presumed to be in what is now the city center of Herth near the parish church of St. Anthony. In the 14th century, the knight family built a permanent house on the site of today's castle , which was mentioned in a document in 1376 as a fiefdom of the Werden imperial abbey . Through marriage, the house Herten mid-14th century came to the men of Galen . Her heir Elseke brought it to her husband Dietrich von Stecke in 1488 through her marriage in 1476. Anna von Stecke married Bertram I von Nesselrode in 1529, treasurer of the Duchies of Jülich and Berg . He was - as many members of the House Nesselrode - from 1539 to 1556 kurkölnischer governor in Vest Recklinghausen and sat from 1530 one begun in 1520, expansion and remodeling of the house continued.

The plant remained in the possession of the von Nesselrode family for almost 300 years. Baron Franz von Nesselrode-Reichenstein was raised to the rank of imperial count by Emperor Leopold I in 1702 . When the last male representative of the Herten family from Nesselrode, Johann Franz Joseph von Nesselrode-Reichenstein , died in 1824, the castle passed through Johann's daughter Maria Caroline to the family from Droste zu Vischering , who were also elevated to the status of imperial count in the same year. The members of their Herten line then called themselves Droste zu Vischering von Nesselrode-Reichenstein in the following years.

The family lived in the Herten facility until shortly after the First World War. But after she resided at Merten Castle in Eitorf from 1920 and thus gave up Herten Castle as a place of residence, it was left to decay. The owners took a large part of the splendid furnishings with them when they left. During the occupation of the Ruhr area from 1923 to 1925, it was used as accommodation for French troops, who left the castle in a state of desolation.

For the time being, the last owner of the complex was the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, which acquired the dilapidated buildings including the palace gardens in 1974. The latter has been owned by the city of Herten since November 2008.

Building history

Crossing over the castle moat and entrance to the castle courtyard

In the first half of the 14th century, the Lords of Herten built a medieval residential tower made of stone, the few relics of which are still visible in the vaulted cellar of the north wing. The cross vault with ribbon ribs probably rests on even older foundations. An emergency excavation carried out in 1974 was able to detect other components from that time, but they could not be reconstructed.

From 1520, the widow Heinrich von Steckes, Sophie von Morrien , converted and extended the stone residential tower into a closed fort in the late Gothic style. Responsible builders were the Coesfeld Henric de Suer (also written Henrik de Suyr ) and his son Johann. For this reason, Herten Castle has obvious similarities to the Nordkirchen Castle of that time , which was also built under Henric de Suer from around 1528. The work was continued from 1529 with minor changes for Bertram I. von Nesselrode. After the construction work was completed in 1560, contemporary reports speak of a "huge building with fortresses and ramparts" which, thanks to its rectangular rampart with corner bastions, was able to withstand a two-year siege by Gebhard I von Waldburg during the Truchsessian War from 1583 . Remains of the ramparts of that time are still preserved in the area of ​​the eastern Kastanienallee.

The extension of the stone residential tower to a bastioned , irregular four-wing complex (excavations have shown that it was originally planned with a square floor plan) took place in several phases.

View through the west portal of the late Gothic column gallery

First, an extension wing was built on post gratings in the north of the complex, which adjoined the residential tower to the east. In later years a two-storey gallery was added to the courtyard side. The façade is the oldest remaining show façade in Westphalia. The start of construction cannot yet be precisely dated, the only thing that is certain is that it was completed before the mid-16th century.

Then the east wing with its representative rooms was probably built. At that time the ground floor only housed a large hall and a hall chamber adjoining it to the south.

The west wing of the facility was added in the third construction phase. A house built earlier, the gable of which is still preserved and is visible in today's attic , formed its middle section . This house was extended to the north by the current north-west tower and then to the south by another tower.

Finally, a two-story, connecting wing was placed at an angle between the east and west wings of different lengths in the southern part of the complex. Its first floor, which is still preserved today, is supported by a late Gothic column gallery . It is no longer possible to determine precisely when its second floor was torn down; Probably between 1850 and 1870. Along with the construction of the south wing, an octagonal stair tower, still preserved today, was built in the southeast corner of the inner courtyard. It was one of the first of its kind, since up to that time only wall stairs on the outer walls or internal wooden stairs to the upper floors were common.

From around 1650, Bertram von Nesselrode and his wife Lucia von Hatzfeld had some modernization work carried out on the buildings, which was also accompanied by the softening of the complex. The perspective painted ceiling of the large hall on the ground floor of the east wing , which was rediscovered during restoration work , dates from that time . It is unique in Westphalia.

Herten Castle and its gardens, drawing by Renier Roidkin, around 1730

In 1687 a serious fire destroyed large parts of the north and west wings during the Christmas season, during which the valuable library was also largely destroyed. Baron Franz von Nesselrode-Reichenstein rebuilt the castle in its current baroque form by 1702. In the course of the reconstruction, the elaborately designed portal was also built on the west side of the facility. At the same time, the client had given the order to create a baroque garden based on the French model with numerous fountains and statues north of the building . 20 preserved pen drawings by the Walloon painter Renier Roidkin from around 1730 give a good insight into the appearance of the gardens at that time. By 1725, following an English fashion, an orangery was built to the northeast, about 200 meters away .

After the previously run-down castle buildings were no longer used after 1925, subsidence caused by mining did the rest and almost brought the four-wing complex to collapse. The springs of the castle moats had temporarily dried up due to soil shifts and had allowed the moat to dry out, which is why the wooden pile grate of the complex was severely damaged . As early as the 1930s there had been considerations to secure the main building against mining damage, but the plans had not been implemented. From 1967, security measures were then taken on the foundations of the buildings by replacing them with reinforced concrete structures. The decay of the existing building structure continued unhindered until the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe took over the ruinous buildings in 1974. Restoration work began that same year and lasted until 1989. In order to save the main building, a considerable loss of the original structure had to be accepted. Reinforced concrete structures replaced all the wooden beam ceilings in the building, which was divided into six building sections by expansion joints. All of the historic oak roof structures - with the exception of a small part of the west wing - have been replaced by modern softwood structures.

The dilapidated orangery was almost completely preserved until the end of the 1960s, but unlike the main building, it was not restored. When the landscape association took over the complex, it had at least some statues from the orangery recovered. Most of the building collapsed in 1977 and the following years. Only a ruin , which was freed from overgrown vegetation and structurally secured in 2010, heralded the former glory of this building . But soon metal thieves tore the eaves from the top of the remaining walls, so that moisture penetrated the masonry. In 2017 the city of Herten decided to start a second restoration and to roof the ruins.

description

In the present castle Herten is a two-part system whose main castle an all around by a moat surrounded brick building with round corner towers. Its outer bailey - also made of brick - is located to the west of it on its own island and was connected to the main castle by a drawbridge . The ensemble also includes a third island in the south, which was probably used as a garden in earlier years.

Main castle

Cartouche and sculpture on the left side of the west portal (2005)

The main castle has four wings that enclose an inner courtyard. Your brick masonry is structured horizontally by water hammer cornices made of stone . With the exception of the single-storey south wing wings have two floors and are of a gable roof completed. The east and west wing of the building have stepped gables with pegs on the narrow sides . Three corners of the closed four-wing complex are marked by round, two-storey corner towers with conical roofs . In the southern part of the west wing, on the outer facade of which a diamond pattern made of glazed bricks is most clearly preserved, is the main portal from the beginning of the 18th century. The gate is framed by an aedicule . Above the archway a lookout sits oriel , that of a segmented gable is crowned. Cartridges to the right and left of the gate tell of the families living at Schloss Herten, the devastating fire and the reconstruction. There you can also find the motto QUAERATUR VIRTUS - INVENIETUR HONOS, carved in stone (one looks for virtue - then honor will be found).

The facade of the north wing facing the courtyard has a simple round arched portal and is framed by two stair towers on its sides. The opposite south wing shows a late Gothic gallery on the courtyard side, the columns of which have unusual, twisted corrugations.

The interior of the main castle is characterized by the renovation in the 1980s. Only the representative rooms in the east wing still have the old baroque furnishings. This includes the stucco ceiling of the small hall, which dates from around 1700. The half-preserved ceiling painting in the ballroom from the middle of the 17th century is particularly valuable in terms of art history .

Buildings on the Vorburginsel

Remise

The core of today's brick bailey building probably dates from the 16th century and was once the western wing of a coach house . The single-storey building has a high gable roof, the ends of which have stepped gables. At its north end, the ruins of another, former wing of the building join it at right angles.

The castle chapel
chapel

Until 1908 the was chapel in the south wing of the main castle before that year today from Schloss Grimberg originating Gothic chapel on the Hertener Vorburggelände translocated was by being removed stone by stone and rebuilt next to the Herten Castle. The church, which originally dates back to the 14th century, has a three-aisled hall over two bays and a choir with a 5/8 end . Its ribbed vault rests on columns and wall brackets . The baroque interior dates from the first half of the 18th century and is partly designed by Johann Conrad Schlaun . The choir stalls and the altar of the chapel are made by Schild, the famous Münster carpenter, while the altar painting is the work of the painter Johann Anton Kappers .

The porch on the gable front of the chapel is not part of the original structure, but was added to the building during a renovation. The same applies to the free-standing portal on the approach to the chapel. It used to be the main portal of the Grimberger Castle and is a Schlauns'cher design from 1735.

Castle Park

Castle park plan

The current shape of the Herten palace gardens goes back to the Düsseldorf court gardener Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe . In the years from 1814 to 1817 he redesigned the former French garden into an English landscape garden, retaining the distinctive elements of the symmetrical baroque garden, for example some avenues and the orangery building. The former maze is no longer preserved, but the natural theater - restored in a simplified form - is now used again for drama performances.

Between the middle of the 19th century and the First World War, the castle owners had two fish ponds and an approximately 200 hectare mixed forest - now known as the castle forest - built in the southern part of the garden. Two gentlemen's houses at the entrance on the northern edge of the palace area also date from this time .

After 50 years of neglect in the period after the First World War, the park was completely overgrown. It was restored at the same time as the restoration work on the palace buildings from 1974 and lasted until 1982. The park was then made accessible to the general public. Of its approximately 30  hectares, 14.5 hectares are wooded areas and five hectares are lawns. Another three hectares are taken up by water, while paths make up another two hectares. The 3,067 trees include such rare trees as a 125-year-old handkerchief tree originally from the Chinese highlands , a large-leaf magnolia and lily of the valley trees originally native to North America . The exotic plants were brought to Herten by the diplomatically active castle owners from distant countries. In total there are over 200 different tree species in the park. Because of its cultural and historical importance, the Herten Castle Park was placed under monument protection in 1988.

Orangery

In 1725, the construction of a single-storey orangery in the neo-renaissance style was completed on the northern edge of the garden north of the castle and today's Narcissus meadow . A balustrade with twelve roof sculptures made of Baumberger sandstone rose above its ten-axis window front. The life-size figures were created by Johann Mauritz Gröninger and depicted figures from Greek mythology . A portal with a triangular gable allowed entry . The building was not only used to overwinter sensitive plants, but also served as a garden casino and dining room. At that time it was also home to one of the most famous camellia collections in Germany. Today, however, only a ruin tells of the former glory of this building.

Tobacco house

A square garden pavilion in the eastern part of the park has been preserved and restored through private donations . The name of the small brick building with a mansard roof in the Louis Seize style as a tobacco house is reminiscent of two French Counts Riaucourt, who were sons of a born Countess von Nesselrode. Before the French Revolution, they had fled to their relatives in Herten and indulged in the pavilion, the then newfangled vice of tobacco consumption, which was not tolerated in the castle buildings.

Todays use

The outer bailey is now used as a social center and day clinic for the LWL Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, which is located in numerous newly built buildings on the western part of the palace.

In addition, the castle has established itself as a location for numerous cultural events, including the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Herten Castle Concerts. Every year at Whitsun there is a two-day art market around the palace with a cultural program, music events and a stage program, where artists and artisans exhibit their work.

Those wishing to marry can get married in the so-called Nesselrode salon , in the fireplace room or in the baroque hall of the castle. A castle café in the north wing of the main castle provides for the physical well-being of the castle visitors, while the vaulted cellar is used by NABU as an exhibition area, where it provides information about the flora and fauna of the castle park.

literature

  • Alexander Duncker : The rural residences, castles and residences of the knightly landowners in the Prussian monarchy along with the royal family, house, Fideicommiss and Schattull goods . Volume 3. Berlin 1860 ( PDF ; 267 KB).
  • Heribert Gieseler: The decay and security of the Herten castle complex. In: Westphalia. History, art and folklore books. Volume 56. Aschendorff, Münster 1978, ISSN  0043-4337 , pp. 120-145.
  • Stefan Kleineschulte: Herten Castle . In: Kai Niederhöfer (Red.): Burgen AufRuhr. On the way to 100 castles, palaces and mansions in the Ruhr region . Klartext Verlag , Essen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8375-0234-3 , pp. 339–342.
  • August Kracht : Castles and palaces in the Sauerland, Siegerland, Hellweg, industrial area. A manual . Umschau, Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-8035-8011-0 , pp. 293-301.
  • Ursula Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten (= Westphalian art sites . Issue no. 68). Westfälischer Heimatbund, Münster 1993, ISSN  0930-3952 .
  • Gregor Spohr, Friedrich Duhme, Wolfgang Quickels : Herten Castle Park. A little piece of paradise . Droste, Herten 1997, ISBN 3-893559-09-4 .

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ^ A. Kracht: Burgen und Schlösser im Sauerland, Siegerland, Hellweg, Industriegebiet , 1976, p. 294.
  2. ^ A. Duncker: The rural residences, castles and residences of the knightly landowners in the Prussian monarchy .
  3. ↑ Dirk Stöver: Special endangerment and conservation problems. Herten Castle. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.): In the course of time. 100 years of the Westphalian Office for Monument Preservation. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 208.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Information flyer on the palace gardens (PDF; 352 KB)
  5. ↑ a b S. Kleineschulte: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 342.
  6. ^ Wilfried Hansmann , Dorothea Kluge (arrangement): Dehio-Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler. North Rhine-Westphalia . Vol. 2: Westphalia. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1969, p. 232.
  7. ↑ U. Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 4.
  8. ↑ U. Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 16.
  9. ↑ U. Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 8.
  10. ↑ U. Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 15.
  11. ^ A. Kracht: Burgen und Schlösser im Sauerland, Siegerland, Hellweg, Industriegebiet , 1976, p. 298.
  12. ↑ a b Information about the castle on the website of the city of Herten , accessed on December 30, 2016.
  13. ↑ Dirk Stöver: Special endangerment and conservation problems. Herten Castle. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.): In the course of time. 100 years of the Westphalian Office for Monument Preservation. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, pp. 209-210.
  14. ↑ Dirk Stöver: Special endangerment and conservation problems. Herten Castle. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.): In the course of time. 100 years of the Westphalian Office for Monument Preservation. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 209.
  15. ↑ Dirk Stöver: Special endangerment and conservation problems. Herten Castle. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.): In the course of time. 100 years of the Westphalian Office for Monument Preservation. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 214.
  16. ↑ Dirk Stöver: Special endangerment and conservation problems. Herten Castle. In: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.): In the course of time. 100 years of the Westphalian Office for Monument Preservation. Aschendorff, Münster 1992, p. 215.
  17. ^ A b c Frank Bergmannshoff: The orangery gets a roof. In: Stimberg newspaper. Edition of March 3, 2017, p. 7.
  18. ↑ U. Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 3.
  19. ↑ U. Schumacher-Haardt: Schloss Herten , 1993, p. 14.
  20. ↑ Locations: 51 ° 35 ′ 37 ″  N , 7 ° 7 ′ 37.7 ″  E and 51 ° 35 ′ 37.4 ″  N , 7 ° 7 ′ 40.1 ″  E
  21. ↑ Information about the castle park on the website of the city of Herten , accessed on December 30, 2016.
  22. ↑ Location: 51 ° 35 ′ 37.1 ″  N , 7 ° 7 ′ 48.9 ″  E
  23. ↑ Location: 51 ° 35 ′ 34.9 ″  N , 7 ° 8 ′ 3 ″  E
  24. ↑ There are very different information about the year of construction in the literature. They range from the middle of the 17th century to 1795.

Coordinates: 51 ° 35 ′ 30 ″  N , 7 ° 7 ′ 48.6 ″  E