Neuburg Castle (Limburg)

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Neuburg Castle, view from the northwest

The Neuburg Castle ( Dutch Kasteel Neubourg ) is south of Gulpen in the Dutch province of Limburg . It goes back to a medieval castle that was replaced by a new building in the 14th century and converted into a Renaissance castle by the van Eynatten family in the 17th century . There were further changes under the subsequent owners; In the 18th century alone, the castle was rebuilt three times. In 1813 the complex was inherited by the Marchant dʼAnsembourg family, who used it as their residence until the 20th century. Run as a hotel-restaurant after the Second World War , the moated castle stood empty for a long time after the company closed. Today's owners are the Dassen family, who bought the castle in 1978 and have had the building restored at great expense since June 2004 .

The palace complex consists of a manor house and two outer castles , which are surrounded by a large English landscape garden. The plant is including Castle Park and various outbuildings since 13 December 2004 as Rijksmonument under monument protection .

history

The current system probably had two predecessors elsewhere. The older one was the Motte Burggraf (also called "Old Castle") north of Gulpen on the old Roman road from Maastricht to Aachen , which stood at a ford of the Gulp. Count Rainald II von Geldern sold his rights to it in 1288 to the House of Luxembourg . The Motte was probably the seat of a family whose members named themselves after the castle van Gulpen and were vassals of the Limburg duke . The younger predecessor, however, was a medieval castle on the southern bank of the Gulp, which was indirectly mentioned in 1289 with a Wijnand de Nuenborg. From the naming it can be seen that the second predecessor complex was replaced by a new building (“nieuwe borg” means “new castle”). This new facility was acquired by Arnold II of Julémont and the land belonging to it in 1301 and then called himself Herr von Wittem and Nieuwenborgh. His castle was mentioned in 1312 as "Nuwe Berghe" as a Brabant fiefdom and consisted of a south wing with the same dimensions as the current building wing and a west wing that was shorter and narrower than today's west wing.

Arnold's successor was Gerard von Julémont, who was inherited by his nephew Arnold von Sippenaken. He sold the property in 1355 to Tilman von Ophem, who in turn left it to his nephew Jan von Eppenrath. In 1398 the castle finally passed to Eppenrath's son-in-law Jan van Eynatten, whose family, with a brief interruption from 1664 to 1690, remained the owners of the complex for over 300 years. Adolf von Eynatten was raised to the nobility together with his two brothers Jan and Wijnand in 1635 and built a castle in the Maasland Renaissance style on the site of the castle - probably to express his new social position . The work on the building with a U-shaped floor plan took place in the relatively quiet period between 1636 and 1644, when the land was firmly in Spanish hands.

Neuburg Castle on a watercolor by Philippus van Gulpen

1716 as sold Chamberlain in Palatine related services Jean Philippe de Eynatten the lock on the Aachen cloth manufacturer Johann Adam Clermont, probably right after the purchase Laurenz Mefferdatis responsible for changes and in 1717 there the Russian Tsar Peter the Great received. Clermont's widow sold the castle to Count Ferdinand von Plettenberg in 1732 . He had it rebuilt and modernized by the builders Johann Conrad Schlaun , Johann Joseph Couven and the Klausener brothers . The hereditary marshal of the Cologne Elector had the construction work cost him around 15,000  Écus , during which the courtyard facades of the first outer bailey were probably changed and the moat between the outer bailey and the manor house was filled. In December 1769, the entire complex was sold to Baron Léonard Bernard de Hayme de Houffalize , the mayor of Liège , who had fundamental changes made to the castle in 1774. Among other things, the east wing of the palace was laid down and the north-east tower with the palace chapel located in it , which was still marked on a map in 1732, was demolished. Léonard Bernard de Haymes architect was probably Barthélemy Digneffe , who later also provided the designs for the Amstenrade Palace and the Hôtel de Hayme de Bomal in Liège (now a museum). After Léonard Bernard's descendant Michel de Hayme became the new lord of the castle in 1795, he commissioned the Dutch builder Mathias Soiron to redesign the building. They mainly affected the two outer castles and some of the still existing moats that were leveled. The straight approach to the castle, which leads to the complex from the north, dates from the same time.

Southeast view of the mansion in 1888

Michel de Hayme was the last castle owner in his family. After his death in 1813, the property passed by inheritance to Oscar de Marchant dʼAnsembourg, the mayor of Gulpen. In 1838 he commissioned the landscape architect Louis Fuchs, a pupil of Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe , to transform the palace garden into an English landscape park based on plans by his master from 1808, in which a neo-Gothic chapel was built. The park was completed in 1843. In addition, around 1854 the lord of the castle had the east side of the castle, which had been open since 1774, closed again with a new wing. The plans for this came from the Brussels architect Victor Evrard. The four wings of the building now enclosed an inner courtyard, which Evrard had covered with a glass dome. The space newly created in this way was used as a winter garden and dining room. In 1856 the landscape garden was redesigned again by Louis Fuchs to its present form.

After the death of Oscar de Marchant dʼAnsembourg in 1887, his son Iwan succeeded him as lord of the castle. He left the property to his second son Rudolf in 1915, under whom the interior of the castle was redesigned in the 1920s. During the Second World War, the manor house of the castle was used as a boarding school for the Jesuits , while the castle owners lived in some outbuildings. It then served as the headquarters of the US Army. From 1951 restoration and repair work was carried out on the meanwhile dilapidated castle, which was continued after the death of Rudolf von Marchant dʼAnsembourg in February 1952 by his widow Christine, nee Freiin von Loë . On April 2, 1959, she sold over 57  hectares of the property belonging to the castle to the Dutch state for 200,000 guilders. The manor house had been leased for 9,000 guilders per year since 1953 and was run as a luxury hotel and restaurant. The castle has been vacant and uninhabited since it was closed in the 1970s. The owner from the Dassen family and the responsible monument protection authority could not agree on the necessary construction work for a long time. A restoration of the complex has been taking place since June 2004 and has been a listed building as an ensemble since December 2004 . We are still looking for a new usage option.

description

Site plan of the castle, the south side is at the top

Neuburg Castle is a three-part complex, consisting of a four-wing mansion and two porches, which are located to the west and north of the main house. The castle is located south of the Maastrichterlaan from Maastricht to Aachen in the Gulp valley on the left bank of the river. Its buildings are surrounded by a large English landscaped garden.

architecture

The main building of the palace complex is a closed four-wing complex made of brick , the wings of which enclose an inner courtyard. The north, west and south wings have three storeys, the east wing, built later, is only two storeys high. The building is finished with a slate hipped roof . At its southwest corner is a square tower with a baroque dome , which was built around 1640 on older foundations. The building has corner blocks made of bluestone and an eaves cornice made of marl . The large, rectangular Louis-Seize- style windows are framed by house frames and are probably the result of a renovation under Johann Conrad Schlaun in the 17th century when they replaced the earlier cross- frame windows . The oldest structure can be found in the basement of the south and west wings. There the walls are partly over 1.5 meters thick and may still come from the previous building from the 14th century. Between the five central axes of the northern outer facade there are four pilasters over the entire height of the building . The middle three axes accommodate double-leaf arched doors on the ground floor . The rectangular windows above on the first floor are higher than the other windows on this side and have low lattices in the Louis-quinze style, which show the crowned initials Léonard Bernard De Haymes (LBDH). The two central axes of the four-axis outer facade of the east wing are particularly emphasized by a flat central projection with a tail gable . The alliance coat of arms of Oscar de Marchant dʼAnsembourgs and his wife Léonie von Wendt-Holtfeld can be found in the gable . The ground floor of the risalit is rusticated . A small flight of stairs leads up to the two central arched windows on the ground floor. The two rectangular windows above on the upper floor are crowned by triangular gables and have a small shared balcony , which is closed off by a filigree grid.

Northern outer bailey, view from the northwest

The two outer castles of the complex are to the north and west of the manor house. Like the main palace, they were built around 1640, but changed by Mathias Soiron at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries under Michel de Hayme. The western bailey has a U-shape open to the manor house. Bricks were used for the two-story masonry and marl for decorative elements such as corner blocks and friezes . In the field-side west wall there are still loopholes . Access is provided by a gate at the northeast corner with a round arched gate passage and a bent hipped roof. It was built according to plans by Mathias Soiron.

The northern outer bailey, surrounded on three sides by a moat, is a three-wing complex that surrounds a trapezoidal inner courtyard. The open side of its U-shape faces the manor house to the south. The outer bailey was built in the second quarter of the 17th century using older buildings and housed stables, a brewery and other utility rooms . Its three wings are three-storey and closed off by a slate-covered hip roof. The masonry is made of brick, marl and limestone were used for window and door frames and corner blocks . Like the western outer bailey, the west wing has loopholes. From there an arch bridge leads to the second outer bailey. The associated gate was built according to a design by Mathias Soirons. The same applies to the portal made of marl in the middle of the north wing, to which a 370 meter long, straight avenue with oak and lime tree plantations leads. It ends at a three-arched brick bridge in front of it. The arched passage of the portal is flanked on the northern outside by coupled Doric columns and crowned by a triangular gable. On the south side facing the courtyard, the double columns have been replaced by brick pilaster strips . The gateway has a square wooden roof top with dials and a small pagoda roof. At both corners of the north wing, in the eastern part of which the castle's brewery used to be, stand four-storey corner towers with baroque slate domes. The western one is crowned by a weather vane with the initials Michel de Haymes (MDH). The stables were once located in the west wing. Next to the gate to the western outer bailey is a chapel, which is younger than the other buildings and was only built after 1829.

inside rooms

The Golden Hall

Inside, despite the long vacancy, lack of maintenance and gradual deterioration, much of the castle's historic interior has been preserved. The central staircase still has its wide wooden staircase with wrought iron railing in the Louis-seize style. The stucco ceiling in this room dates from the 19th century, while other ceilings in the building still have Louis-quinze-style stucco decorations. These may come from the Schlaun conversion. The same art style can be found on three red and one black marble fireplaces . A fireplace made of red and white marble in the Louis-seize style and three smaller chimneys in the Regency style are also still preserved, as are some over- portals from the 18th century showing portraits, landscapes and mythological scenes. One of the well-preserved overall still quite rooms is located on the ground floor golden hall , a salon in the Empire style with ornate gold white paneling . In the southwest corner tower from the 17th century, remains of a wooden spiral staircase and two doors from the time the tower was built can be found.

Castle park and garden

Castle park and manor house

Neuburg Castle is surrounded in the south and east by a 32-  hectare landscape park designed by Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe. It is traversed by the gulp, which not only feeds the moat, but was also included in the design of the park. In the first half of the 19th century, it was dammed up to an artificial waterfall south of the palace complex. On the banks of the river in the south-eastern area of ​​the park there is a small, neo-Gothic chapel made of brickwork, which was built at the same time as the palace park. The park's preserved trees include numerous old beeches and groups of conifers. There used to be a lot of nut trees there too. Particularly noteworthy trees are a red beech over 30 meters high with a trunk circumference of over six meters, a bald cypress with a trunk circumference of almost 6.90 meters and a nearly 37 meter high Dutch linden tree .

To the north-west of the castle is the area of ​​the former baroque garden , which was laid out symmetrically based on French models. It is closed off by a high wall to the north and west. Leaning against this wall, at the northern end of the former central axis, there is an octagonal garden pavilion from the early 18th century, to which Laurenz Mefferdatis is attributed. The masonry of its two floors of red brick contrasts with the light marl that was used for horizontal strips, cornices and corner blocks. The construction is completed by a pear-shaped hood covered with slate. The pavilion is joined by two extensions with hipped roofs along the wall to the east and west. Next to it is a dilapidated greenhouse from around 1900. With its pent roof , it also leans against the northern garden wall.

literature

  • Marcel Bauer et al .: On the way in Couven's footsteps. Grenz-Echo Verlag, Eupen 2005, ISBN 90-5433-187-9 , pp. 230-233.
  • W. Groneman: Kastelen in Zuid-Limburg. Vereiniging voor Vreemdelingenverkeer Beek, Beek 1960, pp. 18-19.
  • Wim Hupperetz and others: Kastelen in Limburg, burchten en landhuizen (1000–1800). Matrijs, Utrecht 2005, ISBN 90-5345-269-9 , pp. 474-477.
  • Fons Meijs: Kasteel Neubourg en de heerlijkheden Gulpen en Margraten. Galopia Heemkunde Vereniging Gulpen, Gulpen 2012.
  • Manfred Nimax: Moated castles and aristocratic residences in Dutch South Limburg between Aachen and Maastricht. Nimax, Aachen 2008, ISBN 978-3-936342-71-0 , pp. 61-68.
  • Martijn Pieters: Castle tour 2006 in the Netherlands. German Castle Association, Braubach 2006, pp. 47–48.
  • Ronald Stenvert among others: Monuments in Nederland. Limburg. Uitgeverij Waanders, Zwolle 2003, ISBN 90-400-9623-6 , pp. 133-135 (digitized version )
  • Heimerick Tromp, Toïta Henry-Buitenhuis: Historical buitenplaatsen in particulier bezit. Het Spectrum, Utrecht 1991, ISBN 90-274-2485-3 , p. 240.
  • JF van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht (= De Nederlandse Monuments van Geschiedenis en art. Volume 5 ). Staatsuitgeverij, 's-Gravenhage 1962, pp. 204-210 (digitized version ) .

Web links

Commons : Schloss Neuburg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Information about the castle on the website of the Heimatverein Galopia , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  2. ↑ Sender's website L1 , accessed January 29, 2017.
  3. ^ Entry of the monument ensemble Schloss Neuburg in the national list of monuments of the Netherlands , accessed on January 27, 2017.
  4. ↑ M. Bauer et al.: On the way in Couven's footsteps. 2005, p. 230.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f J. F. van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht. 1962, p. 204.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f J. F. van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht. 1962, p. 209.
  7. ↑ a b c Information about the castle on absolutefacts.nl , accessed on January 27, 2017.
  8. ^ A b M. Pieters: Burgenfahrt 2006 in the Netherlands. 2006, p. 47.
  9. ↑ a b M. Bauer et al.: On the way in Couvens tracks. 2005, p. 231.
  10. ↑ a b c d M. Bauer et al.: On the way in Couvens tracks. 2005, p. 232.
  11. ^ The contribution to Neuburg Castle in Ronald Stenvert's Monuments in Nederland. Limburg. states that part of the moats around the western outer bailey disappeared around 1815. See R. Stenvert et al .: Monuments in Nederland. Limburg. 2003, p. 134.
  12. ↑ a b c Information about the castle park on the website of the Aachener Lousberggesellschaft , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  13. ↑ a b M. Bauer et al.: On the way in Couvens tracks. 2005, p. 233.
  14. ↑ a b Kastelen in Limburg en omgeving ( Memento of July 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ a b J. F. van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht. 1962, p. 210.
  16. ↑ Lou Heynens: Geconfisqueerd as 'vijandelijk vermogen'. Het 'dossier' Limburgse Kastelen. Heynens, Valkenburg aan de Geule 2013, ISBN 978-90-79444-12-0 , p. 65 ( PDF ; 11.3 MB).
  17. ↑ a b Lou Heynens: Geconfisqueerd as 'vijandelijk vermogen'. Het 'dossier' Limburgse Kastelen. Heynens, Valkenburg aan de Geule 2013, ISBN 978-90-79444-12-0 , p. 66 ( PDF ; 11.3 MB).
  18. ↑ M. Nimax: water castles and stately homes in Dutch South Limburg between Aachen and Maastricht. 2008, p. 61.
  19. ↑ M. Pieters: Castle trip in 2006 to the Netherlands. 2006, p. 48.
  20. ↑ Entry of the second (western) bailey in the national list of monuments of the Netherlands , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  21. ↑ a b c Entry of the first (northern) bailey in the national list of monuments of the Netherlands , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  22. ^ JF van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht. 1962, p. 207.
  23. ↑ Information according to the cadastral map for Gulpen, which is available online
  24. ^ Entry of the mansion in the national list of monuments of the Netherlands , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  25. ^ JF van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht. 1962, p. 206.
  26. ↑ Entry of the waterfall in the national list of monuments of the Netherlands , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  27. ^ JF van Agt: Zuid-Limburg uitgezonderd Maastricht. 1962, p. 208.
  28. ↑ Information on the old trees in the palace park on monumentaltrees.com , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  29. ↑ Information on the garden wall and adjacent buildings in the national monument list of the Netherlands , accessed on January 29, 2017.

Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 29.2 "  N , 5 ° 52 ′ 55.6"  E