Schellenberg Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The gatehouse of Schellenberg Castle seen from the south (2005)
Schellenberg Castle

Schellenberg Castle is a well-preserved castle on a wooded hill of the Ruhr heights in the Essen district of Rellinghausen , North Rhine-Westphalia . From 1452 to 1993 it was the property of the Barons von Vittinghoff called Schell zu Schellenberg and their residence until 1909.

Due to its exceptional location, it is one of the rare examples of a former, high-altitude, two-part moated castle . The facility has been a listed building since 1984 . The Schellenberg Forest surrounding the castle is a forest area with several streams. The Renteilichtung road continues uphill towards Korte-Klippe , Jagdhaus Schellenberg and Neue Isenburg .

The buildings

Schellenberg Castle is a three-part complex, which is divided into a core castle (also known as the main house) and an inner and an outer farmyard.

Main house

Floor plan of the main house in 1897

The multi-part main house consists of a quadrangular residential tower with quarry stone masonry from the 14th century as the oldest part of the complex, including the adjoining extensions, a Gothic castle chapel and a residential building in the classical style from 1820. The exterior of the building clearly illustrates the various construction phases .

Residential tower and extensions

The four-storey residential tower with small windows and the three-storey stone house adjoining it to the south-east - both made of quarry stone - are the oldest parts of the main house. They date from the 14th century. The ground floor of the stone house houses the knight's hall with an elaborate stucco decoration and a ceiling painting of the flora. It is the most representative room in the palace complex.

On the north-east side of the residential tower there is an elongated extension made of quarry stone over two floors, with a three-story brick corner tower in front of it on the north side . The tower is crowned by a curved dome and has an open hall with arched arcades on the ground floor . Its north-eastern outer facade shows the alliance coat of arms of the von Vittinghoff and von Ossenbroek families.

chapel

On the west side of the stone house is a two-storey chapel made of quarry stone, which was built in the 14th century. Your ground floor rises above a ribbed vault with two bays and has two narrow, masted lancet windows on the southwest side . The building is crowned by an eight-sided curved dome with a lantern . An inscription on the outside of the small sacred building testifies to a renovation in 1670:

ANNO 1670. WILHELM FRANTZ VON VITINGHOFF NAMED SCHELL, THE HIGH THUMSTIFFTER PADERBORN AND MUNSTER RESPECT; THUMCANTOR SENIOR.

Housing

The classicist residential building has three storeys, which are closed by a hipped roof with a terrace platform via a strongly protruding eaves cornice . Its plastered facade is divided into five axes by the windows. In the middle there is a representative portal at the level of the first floor, to which a staircase leads. On the second floor there is a small balcony instead of a window in the central axis.

Farmyards

The gallery building (2005)

North-east of the castle are two spacious farmyards, of which the so-called inner courtyard was built on the foundations of the medieval outer bailey from the 14th century. The oldest part of it is the former rentier , known as the gallery building , which is opposite the house. The two-storey building made of stone and half-timbered houses has an open wooden gallery on the first floor . On the facade facing away from the house there is the coat of arms of Giesbert Johann von Vittinghoff, which identifies him as the owner of the building, while on the other side of the building there is an alliance coat of arms of the von Vittinghoff and von Galen families from 1780. A wash house and a bakery are attached to the building.

The elongated outer farm yard dates from the beginning of the 19th century. At its western end is the gatehouse of the castle, which was built in the neo-Gothic style in the course of the emerging romanticism of castles . With its round tower , it is the trademark of the entire complex and bears the alliance coat of arms of Maximilian von Vittinghoff-Schell and his wife Maria Droste-Vischering zu Nesselrode -Reichenstein.

The park

Schellenberg is surrounded on two sides by a large castle park in the English landscape style with exotic trees, the current design of which goes back to the first half of the 19th century. Its origins, however, can be found in a baroque garden from the 17th century. A large orangery building and two single-storey pleasure pavilions have been preserved from the old structure . The Adam & Eve Pavilion from the 17th century rises on a square floor plan and marks the western corner of the park. The Amore Pavilion from 1674, with a cellar , is on the east side of the palace park. It has an octagonal floor plan and is crowned by an eight-sided, onion-shaped dome with a lantern made of crippled wood. A flight of stairs with a stone parapet leads to his entrance door, above which there is a dating inscription and the coat of arms of those of Vittinghoff.

Building history

The medieval residential tower and stone house (middle) with the extension from the 17th (right) and the classicist residential building from the 19th century (left)
Schellenberg Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

The first demonstrable system was a two-part castle, consisting of a core and an outer bailey, which were surrounded by a curtain wall. After its construction in the 14th century, there was no change in the building fabric for a long time. Giesbert Johann Vittinghoff-Schell and his wife Agnes Margarethe von Boenen had the old outer bailey laid down in the first half of the 17th century and a pension building built on its foundations between 1643 and 1656.

Between 1660 and 1672, under Melchior von Vittinghoff-Schell, Schellenberg was converted into a baroque country palace. In the course of the extensive construction work, the extension with a corner tower was added to the residential tower at a right angle and the stone house was modernized. Larger windows were used on the ground floor and the knight's hall was equipped with its current stucco ceiling. In 1670 the previously single-storey chapel was raised by a second floor and the current hood was attached to it.

In the same year, a small wing with two floors made of quarry stone was added as an extension on the southwest side of the residential tower. The symmetrically designed baroque garden was then laid out in the years 1672 to 1674 and two pleasure pavilions were built in it by Paderborn cathedral cantor Wilhelm Franz von Vittinghoff. Also in 1672 a wash house was added to the Rentei.

After the renovation of the renting gallery in 1780, the elongated outer farmyard was built in 1804. From 1820, Max Friedrich von Vittinghoff-Schell and his wife, born Countess von Spee Heltorf , had a three-story mansion built on the south side of the existing residential buildings. In order to create enough space for this building, the moat that was still in existence at that time had to be filled. Between 1820 and 1842/43 the palace park was transformed into an English landscape garden . In 1829 the medieval stone house was increased by one storey and was given a shared roof with the residential tower, after a bakery had been built in the inner courtyard in the first quarter of the 19th century.

After the neo-Gothic gatehouse had been built in 1875, the first demolitions of older parts of the building took place in 1879, but in 1893 a new two-story extension with corner towers in the neo-Gothic style was added to the northwest side of the residential tower.

Subsequent construction work has only taken place inside the building up to the present day.

Residents and owners

The exact founding date of Schellenberg is unknown. However, it was first mentioned in a document in the 12th century. When it was named, the owner at the time, the influential noble lords and knights from the Broich (von Broycke) lordship from Mülheim , was mentioned. By exchange at the end of the 13th century, the property came to the Lords of the Horst . At that time the facility was still called Haus opm berge .

Heinrich von der Horst sold the former castle in 1353 to the knight Noldo von Kückelsheim , whose granddaughter brought it as a dowry in 1388 when he married Pilgrim von (der) Leithen (also Leithe, Leyte and Leythen). Their childless son Dietrich sold the property on August 28, 1452 for 1100  Rhenish guilders to his brother-in-law Johann von Vittinghoff-Schell. This family gave the facility its current name Schellenberg. She belonged to the ministerial of the Essen monastery and from 1456 until the secularization 1803 she held the hereditary death office of the abbey.

When Johann's sons Johannes, Kord and Berndt shared their father's property in 1477, the palace complex came into the sole possession of Kord von Vittinghoff-Schell. His family used the castle as their preferred domicile until the 20th century, before they moved their residence to Kalbeck Castle in Weeze in 1909/10 , after a coal mine shaft and a cable car for transportation had been sunk a short distance from the castle at the end of the 19th century the coal ran just 100 meters from the castle.

From 1918 the castle served temporarily as a home for children and mothers before it was leased to the Catholic Friends' Association for women, girls and children from 1919/20. After this ceased use in 1967, the Higher State Police School moved there in the late 1970s and held seminars and training courses in the premises.

When the last male member of the Vittinghoff-Schell family died in 1993, the entire complex was inherited by his niece Freifrau Spies von Büllesheim . Today the rooms are mainly rented to business customers.

literature

Web links

Commons : Schellenberg Castle  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ P. Clemen: The art monuments of the city and the district of Essen , page 70.

Coordinates: 51 ° 25 '19.4 "  N , 7 ° 3' 0.9"  E