Werdringen moated castle

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Werdringen moated castle 2009

The moated castle Werdringen is a moated castle in Hagen-Vorhalle near the Ruhr on the Harkortsee below the Kaisberg . It houses a supraregional museum for prehistory and early history in an outbuilding .

landscape

The complex, originally built as a moated castle, is located in the protected landscape component of the moated Werdringen castle with old trees. Rare animal and plant species can be found in the moats and moats of the palace complex. The landscape around the moated castle is known for a diverse amphibian fauna and numerous protected dragonfly species, including the largest dragonflies found in Central Europe. It is delightful to look at the fossils of the ancestors of these amphibians and dragonflies in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, which is located in the former castle complex.

The immediate vicinity of the moated castle is a historical landscape and has been one of the most important find areas for fossils and archaeological finds for over 200 years. Not far from the castle is the former Hagen-Vorhalle quarry . The world's oldest known flying insects in the history of the earth were discovered there. They lived in the Carboniferous around 316 million years ago .

At the foot of the Kaisberg in 1876 three long swords from the younger Bronze Age were found , which are among the archaeological treasures in North Rhine-Westphalia . But the oldest modern people in Westphalia and the Ruhr area to date were also found near the moated castle near Hohenlimburg . In the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in the Werdringen moated castle, numerous geological and archaeological finds from 450 million years of history of the southern Ruhr area and Sauerland are on display.

The numerous natural and soil monuments, the picturesque view of the Ruhr valley with the neighboring ruins of the Volmarstein Castle and the Wetter Castle, as well as the Wetterschen Harkort Tower and Freiherr-vom-Stein Tower make Werdringen one of the most attractive places in North Rhine-Westphalia -Westfalen counts. The historic half-timbered old town of Wetter (Ruhr) is located directly opposite Werdringen on the other side of the Ruhr .

history

The moated castle was originally a fiefdom of the Lords of Volmestein and was first mentioned in a document in the middle of the 13th century. At that time it was owned by the Archbishops of Cologne. In the territory of those of Volmestein there was also the court and the church of Hagen. They were the nucleus of the later city of Hagen .

Werdringen was owned by the knightly gentlemen Dobbe from the 13th to the 15th century (the name particle "von" was not worn by the nobles of the region), who among other things belonged to the city nobility in Dortmund and were associated with the Counts of the Mark and the lords were related by marriage to von der Recke . At that time, the aristocratic seat consisted of several fortified buildings, which can be referred to as "permanent houses" or "tower houses" in terms of architectural history. Whether the remains of a moth that have survived near Werdringen were a predecessor of the later moated castle in the 12th or 13th century is unclear due to the lack of archaeological research.

After the conquest of Volmarstein Castle in 1324 by the Counts of the Mark, Werdringen became part of the County of Mark . In the late Middle Ages and in the early modern period, the owners changed several times. The noble families Dobbe, Düdinck, Capelle, von Berchem and von Grüter are proven . In 1617 the Barons von der Recke-Volmerstein were enfeoffed with the entire property as heirs of the extinct Dobbe family.

In the Soest feud in 1449 the aristocratic residence was bombarded, partially destroyed and pillaged. The reconstruction in the 15th century led to the construction of a moated castle. At the end of the 18th century, the facility was already badly damaged and ruined. In addition to the demolition of the wooden drawbridge, which was replaced in 1800 by a stone bridge that still exists today, the curtain walls, which were over 2 meters high and only half of the original height, and parts of the medieval buildings were also demolished.

Wilhelm Riefstahl : Werdringen Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection
The moated castle around 1900

Around 1830 a line of the noble family von der Recke von Volmerstein, who was raised to the Prussian count status in 1817, took up residence at the Wasserburg Werdringen. In 1856/57, Count Ottomar von der Recke-Volmerstein had parts of the medieval / early modern buildings renovated and expanded into a moated castle in the neo-Gothic (historicist) style.

That from the 13./14. The "mansion" from the 19th century with its stepped gable and the building that was originally used as a residential house in the late Middle Ages, but then as a coach house, remained largely unchanged. The "chapel" and the "tower" are particularly characteristic of the neo-Gothic construction phase of the moated castle. Count Ottomar built a mausoleum in the woods of the neighboring Kaisberg, which was used as a burial place until around 1880.

Around 1870 the residence of the counts was moved to Silesia. The moated castle then served as the supervisor's residence and later as a farm. It fell into disrepair in the 20th century. In the " Third Reich " it was transferred to the German Labor Front , which wanted to create a model settlement in the vicinity of Werdringen. As early as 1939 Werdringen was planned as a branch of the "Sauerland Friedrich Harkort Museum" in Hagen.

After the moated castle was almost ready for demolition, it was acquired by the city of Hagen in 1977. Since 1985, extensive renovation work has been carried out in cooperation with a citizens' association, which ended with the establishment of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History. Today the moated castle is a popular destination in the Ruhr Valley and in South Westphalia.

Museum of Prehistory and Early History

collection

On November 7, 2004, a permanent exhibition with a focus on paleontological and archaeological collections, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History , was opened in the Werdringen moated castle as a museum of the city of Hagen and a branch of the Hagen Historical Center . In a short time, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History developed into a major attraction in the region. Just a few months after it opened, the museum had over 30,000 visitors from near and far.

The history of the collection goes back over 200 years. The museum keeps geological and archaeological finds that were discovered in the region as early as the 18th century. The collections of Friedrich Harkort and Karl Ernst Osthaus , which were created in the 19th and early 20th centuries, held a significant share . In the 1930s, they came into the possession of the Sauerland Museum of Prehistory and Early History, which was opened in Hagen and destroyed in 1943–1945 . Much of the collection was lost as a result of the bombing.

After the Second World War , the collections of the city of Hagen were taken over by the archaeologist Dr. Wilhelm Bleicher in the Hohenlimburg Museum at Hohenlimburg Castle . In the spatially restricted municipal museum, which was closed in 2002, a presentation took place in three small and inadequate rooms and in a tiny floor corridor.

Only in 2004, with the opening of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in the Werdringen moated castle, was a scientifically based exhibition of the rich and nationally important collections. The Museum of Prehistory and Early History cooperates closely with the universities in Münster and Cologne as well as with numerous other institutes and the preservation of historical monuments . The city museum is directed by Dr. Ralf Blank.

exhibition

On three floors, the museum shows the development of life and settlement history in South Westphalia for 450 million years. In addition to fossils from the Ordovician , the Carboniferous and the Cretaceous to the Tertiary and Ice Age , the exhibition focuses on the prehistoric and early historical settlement from the Paleolithic , including numerous finds from the Balver cave and other sites in the region, up to the Middle Ages . The archaeological finds from the Raffenburg , which document everyday life in a state castle in the 13th century, are of particular importance .

Internationally significant finds are also on display in the medieval building, such as the skeletal remains of people from the early Mesolithic , which were discovered and scientifically examined in the leaf cave in Hagen, and the small bronze sculpture of a water bird from the Hallstatt period , which came from the southern Alpine region in the Sauerland came.

In the entrance area, visitors are greeted by a realistic dermoplastic of a 3.70 meter high and 6.5 meter long mammoth. In the other museum departments, too, reconstructions and sculptures made according to scientific findings complement the original finds in high museum quality. Among other things, you can see dermoplastics of a woolly rhinoceros and a reindeer. At work stations, visitors can work independently with hand axes and other tools.

Events

Museum cafe

The museum offers well-founded and wide-ranging museum educational activities and accompanying programs for children, young people and adults, as well as special programs for school classes.

There is a small castle restaurant that is open parallel to the museum. It reopened in December 2007.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Wasserschloss Werdringen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 23 ′ 16.9 ″  N , 7 ° 24 ′ 53.6 ″  E