Ehreshoven Castle

Ehreshoven Castle
Near Ehreshoven, Engelskirchen, Oberbergischer Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Ehreshoven Castle Ehreshoven Castle
Height	160 m
Site information
Owner	Rhenish knighthood as a ladies' convent
Controlled by	Rhenish knighthood as a ladies' convent
Open to the public	No
Condition	All parts receive
Site history
Built	1355
Built by	Count of Nesselrode
In use	Until
Materials	Quarrystone

Ehreshoven Castle (Template:Lang-de) is a moated castle in Engelskirchen, Oberbergischer Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It rose to fame as the residence "Schloss Königsbrunn" of Count Johannes von Lahnstein, one of the richest men in Germany, and his family in the German television series Verbotene Liebe.

History

The castle was originally owned by Siegburg Abbey which had been founded in 1164 by Archbishop Anno of Cologne. Ehreshoven was mentioned first in 1355 when obviously it existed as a house or small castle. In 1396 it was given to the family of the count of Nesselrode and stayed in their possession until 1920.

Under Wilhelm of Nesselrode the house was essentially remodelled and the medieval chapel built into the structure in 1595. This manor is considered a monument of high historical value to the area.

At the end of the 17th century, Philipp Wilhelm Christoph von Nesselrode and his wife built a new house integrating just the chapel and the northern part of the original castle.

The three-winged manor house and the big four-winged front house were built at this time. In the early 18th century, a French garden was installed in the north of the castle which is mainly intact today.

It is unknown who was the masterbuilder of this Baroque castle nor whose plan it was, but it is most likely that the artist belonged to the Circle of the Düsseldorf Court.

The last owner was Marie Countess of Nesselrode who died unmarried in 1920 and bequeathed the whole estate to the Rheinische Ritterschaft.

In 1924, they transformed it into the long expected "Damenstift" which is a charitable foundation for Cannonesses. This is what it is still known as today - a changing number of ladies living here under the leadership of a so-called "Äbtissin" who takes care of the household and the welfare of the Cannonesses. The estate is run by a trustee who has to gain enough profit from forestry and farming to provide for the well-being of the old ladies and to ensure the upkeep of the buildings and the grounds.

The castle of Ehreshoven is supposed to be "the most magnificent aristocratic residence" of the "Bergisches Land" which is the mountainous area around here.

Only parts of the original medieval buildings are supported at the rear of the castle of today. The chapel is part of the original buildings incorporated into the present manor house.

In 1990, the whole manor house was renovated from the outside, the broken down roughcast replaced, and the original building's colour was given by the new painting in a light yellow colour which underlines its magnificent appearance.

Construction description

Castle Ehreshoven is valid as one of the most splendid nobility seats of the mountain broads of country. From the federal highway 55 between angel's churches and Overath a short avenue brings to the castle in the Aggertal. About a level stone bridge one reaches to the main gate of Ehreshoven. Four dull-angular colliding wings of the precastle are 2-storey and have hipped roofs which are covered with blue-glazed hollow bricks. The steinsichtigen outer walls are interrupted only by small, irregularly right windows. On both dull corners the strong 3-storey towers on about square plan which are taken with doubly drawn pentagonal bonnets come out. In the outside of the big, far very wide precastle the gate particularly strikes. The plan of the precastle causes that the gate is emphasised on the field side compared with the at an angle stepping back tracts. The creation raises this effect. Strong Toskanian pilasters with heavy Rustika bosses carry the wide frieze with the small gable about the rundbogigen way through. The main cornice is gekröpft, goes about the stepping forward pilasters. Three vases with smith-iron flowers bekrönen the gable with straight end and sloping cheeks. In the masonry of the gate the openings are to be seen for the train chain of the former bridge; the train roles are received there and then. This allows the end that the old drawbridge was removed probably in the 18th century or even only in the 19th century and was substituted with a stone bridge.

Immediately after one the splendid main gate strode through has, the space restricts itself. Here the passageway has only one simple sting curve. If one leaves resulted kennel-like small space by the construction method of the precastle, the court - so to speak, as a contrast and as a surprise opens - to his full width. The pentagonal barnyard is divided into lawns. Two pairs sedate in distance of big stone balls form mark and distance points on the way to the main castle. The walls which protect the ditch between both islands and the pillar pair at the entrance to the honourary court have the same function. The precastle encloses the prospectus of the castle vividly because it would pass in the plan by a lengthening the side wings. The distance elements of the precastle confine the look as it were one on the mansion. The courtyard side of the precastle is very simple. In the upper floor right windows with sandstone framings are used regularly. However, the ground floor is divided irregularly as it corresponds to a functional structure. The external wings have here rundbogige openings; today in the northern wing are closed by window fronts, those in southern by wooden gates. The former use than draws is still to be recognised. The entrance to the honourary court is formed by two modeled pillars between which a smith-iron gate of noteworthy art-craft quality from the time is received about 1700. In the implementation it corresponds to the gate to the park. What one ascertains in the precastle, it is confirmed in the mansion: The single forms are remarkably conservative. This is in the construction time of the castle typically for whole Rhineland and points with which temporal delay an art style asserts itself off the main ways.

Mansion

The middle tract of the castle Ehreshoven plastered today has to cour d'honneur eleven (4:3:4) axes. Two storeys proper rise about a high basement. On the sides there are two easy doors. The windows are mostly across-rectangular with a middle prop. The most striking part is dreiachsige Mittelrisalit on which from the main gate of the castle the look is aimed. More clearly than, otherwise, in Ehreshoven is to be recognised at this that the castle to the Italian mannerism is obliged, namely at a time when this style was overcome in Italy long ago. The Mittelrisalit is stressed by a strong Eckquaderung, but only slightly from the front hervorgezogen. Double-barrelled steps with imperial-decorated iron railing lead to the main main entrance. Between the rising a rundbogige door is to the basement. In the lateral projections of the stair small wall wells with lion's masks and shells from sandstone are right. The false windows beside the stair are across-oval and have rich scroll framings. The rundbogige main entrance to the main floor is framed by put a tread pilasters. In the gable window a Bracke and a lion hold the bekrönte alliance coat of arms Nesselrode-Leerodt. A segment gable with put on stone ball forms the end of the main entrance architecture. The highly rectangular windows in the storeys proper have just falls and middle props. The windows beside the main entrance are from level triangular gables bekrönt. The striking Hausteingiebel of the Risalit is divided richly. He strongly reminds of Italian constructions of the Renaissance and the baroque. The gable is divided into two zones which are connected by the pilaster order. In the upper field a clock is right. Under it a rustiziertes rectangle window is in the middle without middle prop, accompanied by Lukarnen in Hausteingewänden. Scroll cheeks and a segment gable frame the whole. As an Akrotere serve stone balls and stone vases; about the segment end a smith-iron weather vane rises. The attic has two rows of dormers. Indeed, the result is interrupted the in each case second axis beside the Mittelrisalit because there Zwerchhäuser with false gables are right in Toskanian order. The gables become from stone balls bekrönt. The only single-storey side wings have to the honourary court six window axes, to the precastle two. The frames correspond to those in the skin wing. In the basement easy doors are used in the second and fifth axis. In the side wings in particular the peculiar roof strikes. From a hipped roof with Kiel-arched-shaped dormers beschieferter upper guards rise with the small rectangle windows about which a Kiel-arched-shaped hipped roof is established. Above all the back front of the castle is of interest to the construction history of Ehreshoven. Here one can recognise by the masonry still the older components which far come out of the escape of the new building. On the northern corner the Gothic castle house has been included in the castle. One sees the irregularly right apertures. The small wooden bay window comes from the baroque construction phase. Three windows in the second upper floor were increased about 1700 and rise in the big Kiel curve roof which is provided with oval Lukarnen. The old castle house has a bell-shaped hipped roof. A wooden cornice cornice forms the roof beginning in the mansion of Ehreshoven. Beside this component, the late-medieval castle house, one recognises the chapel construction. In the ground floor kragt about put a tread consoles the three-sided altar bay window with his big spitzbogigen windows out. In the space about the chapel the castle archive was originally. Because about the altar even no benefit space might be, many castle owners have gone over in addition instead of building a bay window of a choir which comes out of the house wall. Thus one has given to the canonical demand satisfaction without giving away valuable space in the castle. Besides the strategical one and the aporopäische meaning played a role. From a bay window one can defend a castle better, and the space in which the sanctum was kept should work, so to speak, as a shield against enemies. A known example of chapel bay window is to be seen on castle Eltz, above all in house Turnip brook. The chapel bay window in Ehreshoven has a polygonales writing desk roof which is interrupted in the upper part by a narrow cornice. The chapel construction itself disposes of a pyramid roof. The stairwell comes out tower-like of the back front of the new building. The windows correspond here that of the courtyard side. In the back the additive element typical for a castle is still received in rests, i.e. in the Middle Ages one has established only the necessary constructions. If these were not sufficient any more was grown. Compared with this medieval setting there stands the virtually modern effect of the main front from Ehreshoven. Above all in the axial arrangement and in the virtually pictorial unity of both main views is to be recognised that the whole construction complex is composed not additive. One recognises the will of the developer to establish a baroque castle instead of the medieval castle arrangement.

The inside

Because castle Ehreshoven is inhabited and is not accessible the public, should be entered here only on few important rooms briefly. Behind the main main entrance are a Vestibül which takes the whole depth of the house and has a width of three window axes. Indeed, the entrance lies here not in the middle, but was moved to the side. The floor is booked checkered with in colour alternate stone records. The doors have put a tread framings of black marble. The base zone exists of a tile disguising. The stairwell unreasonably small in contrast to the Vestibül has a timeless simple balustrade railing of coloured stucco marble. The dining room stumbling to the north against the anteroom is dressed up with a noteworthy leather wallpaper. She comes from the construction time of the castle and was possibly created in a Flemish workshop. As a motive a big tendril with different blossoms and fruits returns in what alternately a Putto with trumpet in the left and laurel wreath in the right hand, a Putto hitting the Tambourin or a pigeon with an oil branch are to be recognised in the beak. On the narrower base frieze one recognises between flowers bird's heads. The reason of the Carrets is silvered; from this the red coloured fruits, flowers and garments as well as the green sheet work strongly contrast.

Pictures

• 
  Castle Ehreshoven to 1860, Alexander duncker Collection
• 
  flower idyl at castle Ehreshoven

Literature

Heinrich Neu, Walther Zimmermann: Das Werk des Malers Renier Roidkin. Ansichten westdeutscher Kirchen, Burgen, Schlösser und Städte aus der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts. L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1939

Weblinks

• Stift Ehreshoven
• Material zu Schloss Ehreshoven in der Sammlung Duncker der Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (PDF; 226 kB)