Weilerbach Castle (Eifel)

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Weilerbach Castle seen from the southeast

The small Weilerbach Castle is in the Rhineland-Palatinate municipality of Bollendorf in the German-Luxembourgish Nature Park . It was built from 1777 to 1780 by the Echternach Abbey as a summer residence for their abbots and as an administrative building for the Weilerbach ironworks located in the surrounding area.

Confiscated by the French government at the end of the 18th century and auctioned off to a private individual, the castle was badly damaged in World War II and was not restored and repaired until 1987 . Today, some of the castle's rooms are used for cultural purposes, such as concerts, and an annex building houses a café and a small museum. The restored baroque gardens can be visited free of charge.

history

The Benedictine abbey in Echternach bought a small ironworks near Bollendorf in 1762 for 19,570 francs . After it was not possible to increase production there, the Echternach abbot Emmanuel Limpach decided to build a new, larger hut in the nearby Weilerbach between 1777 and 1779. This was followed by the construction of Weilerbach Castle until 1780 as the abbot's summer residence and as the administrative seat of the ironworks. The Tyrolean builder Paul Mungenast made the plans .

After French revolutionary troops occupied the castle in 1794 and confiscated it for the French state, it was auctioned off to the French directorate commissioner Nicolas Vincent Légier in 1797. After his death in 1827 it came in the same year to Charles-Joseph Collart (1801-1834), who sold it in 1832 to the Luxembourg industrial family Servais. The Servais remained owners for more than 150 years and extensively repaired it in 1930.

During the Second World War, the castle was badly damaged by artillery fire in the course of the Ardennes offensive and was vacant for a long time. The ironworks continued until 1958, but was then discontinued. The buildings belonging to the hut fell into disrepair from that time, as did the palace. An emergency roof, which the castle was provided with in 1961, prevented complete ruin.

After the palace area was placed under protection as a monument zone in 1981 , the Servais family sold it in 1985 to Gewerbebau- und Treuhand GmbH Trier, which had the dilapidated palace completely restored from 1987 onwards in accordance with monument conservation principles. The renovation of the facades alone cost DM 550,000. After the district of Bitburg-Prüm (today: Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm ) bought the facility in 1991/1992, it continued the reconstruction. The castle building was restored by 1992 and was inaugurated on May 29th of that year in a ceremony. By 1997 the restoration of the completely overgrown garden followed. From 1999, security and partial reconstruction work was carried out on the remains of the smelter's building, as well as the restoration of the sewer system, which lasted until 2008.

Todays use

After several years of vacancy, a health center was set up in the castle, but its operation was stopped at the end of 2011 after almost two years. Most of the surviving outbuildings are rented out, which is why it is not possible to view the inside of these buildings. The outdoor facilities are open to the public.

A museum café was opened in the former coach house in 1997, exhibiting products made by the disused Weilerbach ironworks. There is also a model of the entire castle and hut complex as it appeared around 1900. It is also possible to have a civil marriage in the castle. The Irrel community offers the pavilion in the palace garden and the ballroom in the palace building. Concerts are also regularly held in the latter.

description

Site plan of the palace complex

The baroque style castle is surrounded by 25 hectares of land, which also includes a castle garden based on French models.

lock

Exterior

The castle is a two-storey building made of quarry stone with light plaster and reddish stone structures. It stands on a high basement and is closed by a mansard roof, which is crowned by a small turret with a clock.

On the south side of the building, a double flight of stairs with a wrought iron railing from 1807 leads to the portal , which protrudes somewhat from the central axis of the building and carries a balcony with a railing in the Rococo style . Above the door there is the inscription "ANNO 1780" in a cartridge , which indicates the year of construction of the building. The frames of the arched windows in the central part of the building show grimaces carved in stone as the upper end, which were supposed to keep the gloom away from the pleasure palace .

The central axis of the building is particularly emphasized by a triangular gable resting on Ionic pilasters at the height of the attic. It shows the coats of arms of the Limpach family and Echternach Abbey, which are covered in tendrils and grimaces, and thus identify the abbot Emmanuel Limpach as the builder of the castle. The gable has four figures. They were installed there in 2010 and are copies of originals believed to be lost for a long time, the torsos of which were found in an outbuilding of the castle. The triangular gable shape can also be found in the same size on the two side risalit buildings with pilasters that run over two floors. However, they do not show any coats of arms, but rather have round windows surrounded by tendrils. Vases are enthroned on their tops, from which flames lick up.

In contrast to the south facade, the other three sides of the building are plain and simple.

inside rooms

The interior of the palace building is just deep enough to accommodate a single row of adjacent rooms that can be entered through a corridor to the south . The upper floor can be reached via the central staircase with a surrounding gallery and newly built sandstone staircase, with the large ballroom in the western section. The special feature of this room is its painted paneling , which dates from 1780 and is repeated in the neighboring rooms. The remains of stucco decorations in the hall that are still preserved today date from around 1880.

The so-called abbot's room is on the upper floor of the eastern risalit . It has ornamental and figurative painting from the time the lock was built, which was restored in the 1990s. Another notable room is the castle kitchen on the ground floor with a monumental fireplace and vaulted ceiling .

Other buildings

Ruins of some of the buildings belonging to the ironworks

To the south of the castle building is the former porter's house from the 18th century. It stands at the western end of an elongated water basin that originally served as an energy reservoir for the Weilerbacher Hütte. The current facade decoration of the building dates from around 1880 when the house was enlarged.

To the northeast of the castle is its former coach house from the 18th century. The two-story plastered building is painted beige and has a pan-roofed gable roof with small dormers . The former caretaker's house behind the palace is also one of the outbuildings, which have also been completely renovated.

To the east of the castle building and to the south of it on the hillside are the ruins of various buildings from the 19th century that once belonged to the steelworks, including the structural remains of the cutter, smelter, molding shop and slag pounding mill.

garden

The garden ground floor of the palace gardens, on the right the pavilion building (2001)

To the south-west of the palace is a rectangular baroque garden , the strictly symmetrical ground floor area of ​​which is 127 × 75 meters in size. Vase sculptures stand on the low wall that surrounds the garden . There are three fountains in the central axis formed by a path that runs straight from the palace building to a pavilion building . Although this has a rectangular floor plan, the interior of the only room has an oval floor plan. In its “corners” there are cupboard niches and stairs that lead to the basement and the attic. The external design of the small building with a basement is very similar to that of the palace building on its southern side: It stands on a high base and has a triangular gable in the central axis and pilasters on the corners of the building. Its arched entrance is flanked by two trompe-l'œil paintings that simulate windows. During the restoration of the pavilion in 1993, the interior was restored in the late Baroque style as well as the wall structures with Ionic pilasters and festoons .

On the north-western side of the garden parterre there are three higher terrace levels on which vines were previously grown. The top level is the location of a small fountain house, whose facade painting in the colors ocher and turquoise was reconstructed during restoration work in 1994. It shows, among other things, a vertical arches , corner pilasters and vases.

literature

  • Bernd Altmann, Hans Caspary: Bitburg-Prüm district. City of Bitburg, Verbandsgemeinden Bitburg-Land and Irrel (=  cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Volume 9.2 ). Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1997, ISBN 3-88462-132-7 , p. 434-436 .
  • Klaus Kremb, Peter Lautzas: State history excursion guide Rhineland-Palatinate . Volume 2. Arbogast, Otterbach 1991, ISBN 3-87022-150-X .
  • Heinz Monz: In new splendor - Weilerbach Castle . In: Journal. Vol. 4, No. 9, 1991, pp. 46-47.
  • Marie Luise Niewodniczanska, Michael Berens : Weilerbach Castle . Schloß-Weilerbach-Gesellschaft, Bitburg 2001, o. P.

Web links

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

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Historical overview of the Weilerbacher Hütte , accessed on June 25, 2012.
  2. ↑ According to other sources, Louis-Vincent Légier was the buyer.
  3. ↑ a b Gabriele Nina Bode, Michael Losse : Architectural monuments endangered - architectural monuments saved. Rhineland-Palatinate (reporting period around 1991 to 1996) . In: Castles and Palaces . Vol. 37, No. 3, 1996, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 158.
  4. ^ G. Wollenberg: Facade renovation at Weilerbach Castle . In: Building protection and building renovation. Magazine for building maintenance and monument preservation. Vol. 18, No. 7, 1995, ISSN  0170-9267 ( online ( memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )).
  5. ↑ a b Hartmut Hofrichter: Architectural monuments endangered - architectural monuments saved. Rhineland-Palatinate . In: Castles and Palaces . Vol. 51, No. 4, 2010, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 262.
  6. ^ G. Wollenberg: Weilerbach Castle in the South Eifel . In: Building protection and building renovation. Magazine for building maintenance and monument preservation. Vol. 18, No. 7, 1995, ISSN  0170-9267 ( online ( memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )).
  7. ↑ a b B. Altmann, H. Caspary: Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Bitburg-Prüm district , 1997, p. 434.
  8. ↑ a b c M. L. Niewodniczanska, M. Berens: Schloss Weilerbach , 2001.

Coordinates: 49 ° 50 ′ 3 "  N , 6 ° 23 ′ 26"  E