Lontzen Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lontzen Castle, no later than 1864

The Lontzen Castle ( French Château de Lontzen ) is a moated castle in the Belgian municipality of Lontzen ( German-speaking Community ). The property used to be called Welkenhuys Castle (en) and is now also known as the Großhaus or Großer Haus . It was given the latter name to distinguish the Krickelhausen estate , which is also located in Lontzen and is also known as the small house or small house . A previous complex destroyed in 1289 was one of the oldest fortified houses in the Eupen area. The hereditary bailiwick over the glory of Lontzen was connected to him, the center of which was the complex. The stories of the castle and the rulership were therefore closely linked. The current mansion in the classicism style was built in 1845 by Andreas Joseph Franz von Grand Ry . Together with the farm yard and the surrounding park, it has been protected as a cultural monument since December 9, 1991 .

history

Beginnings and first new building

As early as the 13th century, a well- fortified residential tower stood on the site of today's castle , for which the Snabbe family has been proven to be the first owner. The fortification was the focus of the Lontzen dominion, which consisted of the two villages Lontzen and Busch. This was in the Duchy of Limburg , but was an imperial fief of the Aachen Marienstift , which it passed on as an after-fief .

Lontzen was first mentioned in a document in 1275 when it was owned by Cuno von Lontzen, the bailiff of the Duchy of Limburg. During the Limburg succession dispute, Lontzen Castle was besieged by Geldrian troops in 1286 , but was able to resist for 40 days until relief from Brabant arrived. After the Brabant Duke Johann I destroyed the complex in 1288, Cuno sold the ruins to Count Guido I of Flanders on June 29, 1289 , before Cuno's son Heinrich bought them back in 1293. When he died around 1315, he was inherited by his daughter Yolande. Through her the castle came to her second husband Maes (Thomas) von Holset, the Drosten von Rolduc , who was enfeoffed on February 5, 1385 by Duchess Johanna von Brabant with the rule of Lontzen. The couple bequeathed the property to Maes' daughter Katharina from his first marriage in 1395. Through her marriage to Pontz von Welkenhuysen (also Welkenhaus and Welchenhausen) in 1374, the castle came to this family. Presumably Pontz had the facility rebuilt, because from then on it was named Burg Welkenhuysen after him .

Changing owners

The couple bequeathed the castle to their son Dietrich, who was enfeoffed with Lontzen by the Aachen provost on August 22, 1418 . After his death in 1428 he was followed by his younger brother Pontz II von Welkenhuysen. From him the property went in 1477 to the eldest son Dietrich, who in 1495 from his younger brother Pontz III. was inherited. He left castle and rule to his two sisters Katharina and Margarete, who had become nuns in the imperial abbey of Burtscheid . The two women had to deal with inheritance claims of other relatives: Gerhard von Gronsveld had been making claims on Lontzen since 1495, and later this also applied to Werner Scheiffart von Merode and Simon von Belven. There is no evidence how these disputes ended. In 1510 Katharina sold her part of Lontzen to her relative Johann von Neufchâteau , Lord of Wodémont . In 1512 he also acquired Margarete's share, so that he was the sole lord of Welkenhuysen Castle ever since.

Via Johann's sister Katharina, Lontzen came to their children Frambach and Katharina from their first marriage to Alard von Gulpen in 1518 . In the following year, the property came to Friedrich von Sombreffe , the husband of Katharina's daughter Johanna from her second marriage to Johann von Zeel ( French Jean de Celles ). The couple bequeathed the castle to their children, of whom Johann von Sombreffe took care of the complex in 1557 and left it to his brother-in-law Wilhelm von Goltstein, Herr von Müggenhausen . This was enfeoffed with Lontzen in 1564. He had to see how Spanish troops under Alessandro Farnese besieged the castle during the Eighty Years War , so that its inhabitants had to surrender after three days. As a result, the facility received a Spanish occupation before Wilhelm vom Goltstein received it back in 1584.

Lontzen under the Schellart von Obbendorf family

After his death, Lontzen came to her husband through Wilhelm's daughter Katharina. In 1598 she married Johann Schellart von Obbendorf , Herr zu Gürzenich , who was enfeoffed with the complex in 1603. After his death in 1614, his son Friedrich became the new lord of Lontzen. He bequeathed it to his nephew Adam-Wilhelm II. Count Schellart von Obbendorf. His first marriage to Maria Elisabeth Raitz von Frentz gave birth to his son Joseph Arnold, who succeeded his father as Herr von Lontzen. He bequeathed the system to Johann Wilhelm Joseph Schellart von Obbendorf, the son from his brother's second marriage to Marie-Sophie von Auersperg .

The outbuildings of the property, which were partly renovated by the owners during the 17th century, as well as the entire complex, suffered from the billeting of Brandenburg soldiers in 1696 and were badly affected. During the War of the Spanish Succession , the French commander of Limburg , Louis de Barberin, Count von Reignac, had the large main tower of the complex blown up in 1702, which also severely damaged the other buildings. In this condition, however, the property was still good enough to receive Tsar Peter the Great in 1717 . Accompanied by the Limburg fortress commander , General Georg von Tunderfelt, he dined in Lontzen on July 25th of that year before continuing his journey across Europe.

New building as a castle

Welkenhuysen Castle was still in a ruinous state when Johann Wilhelm Joseph Schellart von Obbendorf sold it in 1732 to Count Johann Ludwig von Harscamp, General in the service of the Electorate of the Palatinate and Governor of Jülich . With the exception of a few parts of the outer bailey, he had the remains of the building demolished in order to subsequently build a castle in the same place in 1746. As early as 1738 he had an entrance portal built on the southern edge of the property with his coat of arms and that of his wife Maria Elisabeth von Rolshausen. When the daughter Marie Louise Philippine married Ferdinand Ludwig Karl Maria von Hochsteden in 1756, the property passed to the groom's family. Because the couple's son, Ponthian, died childless, Lontzen Castle passed to Ponthian's sister Amalia Theresia Franziska and her husband Karl Emmanuel von Auxy in 1773. The couple did not live in the castle themselves, but rented it to District Administrator Bernhard von Scheibler . Karl Emmanuel von Auxy's son Karl Eugen Ferdinand sold the property , which had been eligible for state assembly since 1831, in 1845 to Andreas Joseph Franz von Grand Ry, the former mayor of Eupen . His son Andreas Joseph Julius de Grand Ry took over the 554-  acre property in 1848. In 1853, he had the manor house completely renovated and the front of the property changed significantly. The coat of arms of the Grand Ry family above the main entrance still reminds of the construction work .

In bourgeois ownership and third new building

In 1882 the Aachen cloth manufacturer Leo Nellesen, brother of the later owner of the Eyneburg in Hergenrath , bought Lontzen Castle from the heirs of Julius de Grand Rys. Via Nellesen's daughter Rosa, Lontzen came to their two daughters Maria Anna and Concita, who sold the palace complex in 1951 to Pierre de Walque, judge at the Appeal Court in Ghent . He did not remain the owner for long, but sold the facility on September 8, 1958 to the Montfortaner brothers of St. Gabriel. They established their novitiate for Belgium in the castle . They used the facility for training purposes for ten years, before a lack of young people and excessive maintenance costs for the large property forced the order to sell Lontzen Castle on September 9, 1968 to Heinrich Münch from Aachen, General Director of Fabrique Nationale in Herstal .

Münch began extensive repairs, which were almost finished when a blowtorch set fire to the roof of the mansion around noon on June 4, 1970. The fire not only destroyed 70 percent of the building, the valuable interior furnishings were also lost. A dispute with the insurance company meant that the reconstruction of the castle could not be started immediately, so that it remained in ruins for the time being and fell into disrepair. In 1985 Josef Schiffer from Aachen acquired the property and began restoring it. In the course of the work, the mansion was completely gutted, so that only the outer walls remained. After completion of the reconstruction in 1987, the roof structure of the building was rebuilt according to the old model and the interior, which previously consisted of 50 rooms, was redesigned into six apartments.

description

Schematic site plan
View of the castle from the north

Lontzen Castle is a two-part complex, consisting of an 18th century manor house and a three-wing bailey to the north of it. A small landscaped park with old trees belongs to the property . It is the remains of a once magnificent palace park that was still preserved in the 20th century. The castle area is surrounded by a quarry stone wall, which is interrupted in the south by a round arched portal. This shows the coats of arms of the von Harscamp and von Rolshausen families as well as the year 1738.

Outer bailey

The three wings of the farm buildings have a roughly semicircular floor plan and enclose an inner courtyard. Most of them date from the 17th century, with doors and windows changed in the 19th century. A massive round tower with a polygonal dome and an onion-shaped end stands at the angle of two wings of the building . Its strongly stepped base comes from the main tower, which was demolished at the beginning of the 18th century. The arched entrance leads to the ground floor with a domed vault . Above the entrance door there is a bluestone plate with the coat of arms of Harscamp / von Rolshausen. Together with another, but much smaller, round tower in the south-west corner of the complex and a small piece of surrounding wall , the tower base is the only building structure that still comes from the previous building of the castle built under Pontz I. von Welkenhuysen.

Mansion

A three-arched stone bridge leads to the two-story manor house with a mansard roof . It replaces a drawbridge that used to be there and bridges the moat that surrounds the building on three sides. The rectangular structure is divided into five axes on the short sides by windows. The long sides, on the other hand, have eight axes, with the two outer axes protruding slightly from the front on the north side and thus forming two short side wings that frame a small forecourt. A flight of stairs leads to the main entrance in the middle, the crowning round gable of which shows the coat of arms of the Grand Ry family. The building has large arched windows with trapezoidal keystones on all sides . On the west side of the upper floor there is a chapel bay window with a Welscher hood and an open lantern . It dates from the 19th century and was grown under Leo Nellessen.

literature

  • Ghislaine de Bievre (ed.): Province de Liège: Arrondissement de Verviers, Part 2: H – L (= Le patrimoine monumental de la Belgique. Volume 12/2). Mardaga, Lüttich 1984, ISBN 2-8021-0062-9 , pp. 753-755.
  • Manfred Nimax: Castles, palaces, mansions in East Belgium. 3. Edition. Nimax, Aachen 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-020297-1 , pp. 70-74.
  • Guy Poswick: Les Délices du Limbourg. Self-published, Verviers 1951, pp. 397-402 ( digitized version ).
  • Heribert Reiners (ed.): The art monuments of Eupen-Malmedy. Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann, Düsseldorf 1982, ISBN 3-590-32117-2 , pp. 154-158.
  • Administration of the German-speaking Community: Lontzen (= directory of monuments. Volume 7). Administration of the German-speaking Community, Eupen 1989, pp. 285–287.
  • Pierre de Walque: Notices historiques sur le château et lʼavouerie de Lontzen. Suivies dʼune étude sur les origines du lignage des Schaevedriesche. Zech, Braine-le-Comte 1960.

Web links

Commons : Lontzen Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Schloss Lontzen on trois-frontieres.be , accessed on May 15, 2016.
  2. ↑ Lontzen Castle on the cultural heritage website of the German-speaking Community , accessed on May 15, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j The Lontzen "Grosshaus" in the mirror of the chronicle. The Count of Harscamp's 224-year-old building was destroyed by flames. In: Grenz-Echo . Issue of June 5, 1970, p. 6.
  4. ^ Johann Friedrich Schannat, Georg Baersch: Eiflia illustrata or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. Volume 2, Dept. 1. Aachen / Leipzig, Mayer 1829, pp. 234-235 ( digitized version ).
  5. ^ A b G. Poswick: Les Délices du Limbourg. 1951, p. 398.
  6. ^ G. Poswick: Les Delices du Limbourg. 1951, pp. 398-401.
  7. ^ A b c G. Poswick: Les Délices du Limbourg. 1951, p. 401.
  8. ^ H. Reiners: The art monuments of Eupen-Malmedy. 1982, p. 154.
  9. ^ H. Reiners: The art monuments of Eupen-Malmedy. 1982, p. 155.
  10. ↑ a b c Administration of the German-speaking Community: Lontzen 1989, p. 286.
  11. ↑ a b H. Reiners: The art monuments of Eupen-Malmedy. 1982, p. 157.
  12. ↑ Alexander Duncker (Ed.): The rural residences, castles and residences of the knightly landowners in the Prussian monarchy together with the royal family, house fideicommiss casket goods in lifelike, artistically executed, colored representations. Volume 6. Duncker, Berlin 1864 ( PDF ; 875 kB).
  13. ^ The article on Lontzen Castle on trois-frontieres.be gives Friedrich as Münch's first name.
  14. ^ A b Administration of the German-speaking Community: Lontzen 1989, p. 287.
  15. ↑ M. Nimax: castles, manors in eastern Belgium. 2010, p. 70.

Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 47.8 "  N , 6 ° 0 ′ 44.6"  E