Neersen Castle

Inner courtyard of Neersen Castle

Neersen Castle, 1844

Alliance coat of arms of Ambrosius Franz von Virmond on the gable

Blackboard with floor plan

Coat of arms of the Crous family above the main portal

The Neersen Castle is a castle with universally accessible park in Neersen , a district of Willich on the Lower Rhine . It is located at a height of 44 meters above sea level .

history

Neersen Castle

When it was built, Neersen Castle was still a moated castle on the Niers River . The castle was built as a stone Niederungsburg ( Motte ) on a Donk in the middle of the landscape characterized by break forest . It was located directly on the Niers, which fed the moat and, until it was straightened in 1930, led directly past the castle or the later palace. It is believed that this is where the name Neersen comes from. Today the Niers is about one kilometer from the castle.

In the Middle Ages, Neersen was the center of an hereditary vogtei , which was first mentioned in documents as an Electoral Cologne fief in 1263. At that time the Knights von der Neersen held the bailiwick. The Neersen area probably came to Kurköln under the Archbishop of Cologne, Philipp I von Heinsberg in the 12th century, but it is unclear when Neersen was raised to an independent bailiwick. When in 1371 the Archbishop of Cologne Friedrich III. von Saar werden , Heinrich (IV.) von der Neersen enfeoffed with the bailiwick, the castle of Neersen at that time was also explicitly mentioned in a document. The castle was located directly on the east bank of the Niers, which formed the border between the Electorate of Cologne and the Duchy of Jülich . In the event of war, the castle, administered by the bailiffs, was occupied by a garrison from the Electorate of Cologne and was supposed to defend the crossings of the Niers. The exact course of the border between Kurköln and Jülich was controversial, in any case, the Neersen bailiffs had at least parts of their Neersen fiefdom regularly confirmed by the Jülich man chamber in Heinsberg .

The knights von der Neersen tried in vain in the 14th century to build their bailiwick into an independent rule . 1487 died with Heinrich VI. from the Neersen the male line of the family, and the inheritance fell through the marriage of his sister Agnes von der Neersen to Anton von Palant . The Hessian knight Ambrosius von Virmond zu Nordenbeck married her heir Agnes von Palant and founded a new line of those "von Virmond" in Neersen in 1502 .

After the Thirty Years War , the Virmond family had risen in reputation through war participation. Johann von Virmond was made baron by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1621 for his services in the Battle of the White Mountain . In addition, Neersen Castle was dilapidated and they wanted a new building in keeping with their status. Since Johann reign, the funds required for this have come from payments made by the elector of Cologne for the provision of armed forces, but also from extorting taxes and war dues from the population.

Neersen Castle

Under Adrian Wilhelm von Virmond , the medieval moated castle was converted into a three-winged, baroque castle with four corner towers from 1661 to 1669 with the then considerable expenditure of 18,139 Reichstaler and around two million bricks . Despite the dismantling of the medieval fortifications, the castle complex with its apron made of trenches and palisades remained defensible; when an inventory was taken in 1765, 15 cannons and a mortar were still available.

1706 was Damian Hugo von Virmond by Emperor Joseph I to Imperial Count levied. In 1720, Ambrosius Franz von Virmond had the castle expanded, so the central building of the castle was enlarged by a few meters towards the inner courtyard, which freed up space for the staircases. With the death of this same Ambrosius Franz von Virmond, the male line died out in 1744. His childless widow, together with Anrath and Schloss, ceded his childless widow in 1763 to the Electorate of Cologne for 110,000 guilders, which appointed a bailiff in Neersen.

In 1766 the electoral Cologne bailiff Weydenhorst was Neersen's administrator. In 1767, the Elector's Chamber Councilor Johann Gottfried Mastiaux de Namay was appointed administrator of Neersen Castle by the Elector. In a document dated October 8, 1770, he was appointed Administrator Generalis of the Glory Neersen. Meanwhile widowed, he received the manor house Neuenhofen in Bockum from the Cologne elector as a fief in 1776 . Then he appears in documents under the name Mastiaux on Neuenhoven instead of de Namay before . The Imperial Knighthood Diploma was awarded to him on February 23, 1780, through which he was elevated to the knighthood with the predicate Edler von Mastiaux auf Neuenhoven. In 1780, Mastiaux resigned his post in the Neersen estate against a compensation payment of 5,000 Reichstalers to Josef Lenders .

In 1794 Neersen was occupied by French revolutionary troops during the First Coalition War and finally separated from Kurköln in 1798 when the French government carried out regional administrative and judicial reforms. In 1801, in the Peace of Lunéville France, the four departments on the left bank of the Rhine were awarded secularization in 1802 . Neersen Castle was nationalized and sold in 1803 to the last electoral Cologne bailiff of Neersen, Josef Lenders. In 1852 the Gladbach manufacturer Felix Wilhelm Hüsgen leased the building from Josef Lenders' heirs and set up a cotton wool factory and cotton weaving mill there. On the night of March 28-29, 1859, the castle burned down to the surrounding walls. The cause of the fire was the explosion of a steam engine.

Recent history

Hugo Lenders, Josef Lenders' grandson, auctioned the damaged castle in 1894. The Krefeld manufacturer Gustav Klemme, who had been running a velvet factory in Neersen since 1866 , was awarded the contract. With the exception of the west wing, he had the castle restored by 1896. In 1928, Emil Crous, a private citizen from Viersen , bought it.

After the Second World War , the 5th Armored Division of the United States Army had its temporary headquarters there. This was then given up and the castle was handed over to the DRK via the Kempen-Krefeld district , which used it as a rest home for children.

In 1970 Neersen Castle was bought by the newly founded town of Willich, into which the Neersen community was incorporated. In 1973 it was decided to renovate and rebuild the west wing in order to use the castle as a town hall. Work on this was finished in 1982.

As part of Euroga 2002 it was part of a national horticultural show in North Rhine-Westphalia . For this occasion, the outdoor facilities were restored based on models from the 18th century. In the park is the park of the senses with various stations such as labyrinths etc.

The annual highlight is the Neersen Castle Festival, which has been taking place in the open air in the castle courtyard since 1984.

Notes and individual references

↑ For the derivation of the name see article Neersen .
↑ Johann Peter Lentzen, Franz Verres: History of glory Neersen and Anrath. Lentzen, Fischeln 1883, p. 89.
^ Gisela Meyer: The Palant family in the Middle Ages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004. S. 196ff.
↑ Westdeutsche Zeitung of August 16, 2007: History: Castle built with war profit , accessed on February 6, 2009.
↑ Johann Peter Lentzen, Franz Verres: History of glory Neersen and Anrath. Lentzen, Fischeln 1883, p. 86.
↑ Johann Peter Lentzen, Franz Verres: History of glory Neersen and Anrath. Lentzen, Fischeln 1883, p. 244.
↑ www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/Mastiaux
^ Wilhelm Janssen: Small Rhenish History , Düsseldorf 1997, pp. 261–264.
↑ Leo Peters : Major fire destroys Neersen Castle (In: Rheinische Post / Grenzland-Kurier of April 10, 2019, p. C5)

literature

Peter Vander: Neersen Castle and Lordship. (Series of publications of the district of Viersen, 25) Kempen 1975. ISBN 3931242072 .
Rhenish history sheets from 1897, On the history of the Mastiaux family by Dr. Paul Kaufmann
Rhenish history sheets from 1901, on the history of the Mastiaux family (continued) by Dr. Paul Kaufmann