Kalkum Castle is a water castle in the district of the same name in the north of Düsseldorf about two kilometers northeast of Kaiserswerth and an extraordinary example of Classicism in the Rhineland. Together with the associated castle park, it has been a listed building since January 1984.
Originating from one of the oldest knights' seats in the region, the ancestral seat of the knightly-born lords von Kalkum, the property passed to the lords von Winkelhausen around the middle of the 15th century, who were to determine the fate of the estate for the following 300 years. Modified in the 17th century into a castle in the Baroque style, the complex was given its current external appearance mainly through a classicist conversion between 1808 and 1814 based on designs by the Krefeld master builder Georg Peter Leydel. He connected the outer bailey and the manor house by inserting intermediate buildings to form a closed four-winged complex. At the same time, under the direction of landscape architect Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe, a palace park was laid out in the English landscape style. In 1817, the main gate was extended by the architect Johann Peter Cremer. The interior of the palace was designed by the decorative painter Ludwig Pose.
Kalkum became known far beyond the borders of Prussia as a result of the divorce war between the castle owner Count Edmund von Hatzfeldt and his wife Sophie, who was represented by Ferdinand Lassalle, who was only 20 years old at the time. Today, a memorial in a tower-like pavilion on the eastern wall of the palace park commemorates him. After the World War II, the buildings were initially used as refugee accommodation, then as a training center for home workers. The complex was then restored from 1954 to 1966 and converted for use as an archive. In the process, the classicist living and social rooms of the manor house were restored.
Today, the palace is empty because the Branch of the State Archives of North Rhine-Westphalia, which was housed there for a long time, moved to the new Landesarchiv building in Duisburg at the end of 2014. However, the facility is still used for classical concerts and other cultural events. The approximately 19 hectare large palace park is open to the public.Anja Tischendorf: Das könnte Ihnen gehören. Neuer Schlossherr für Kalkum gesucht. Article from February 21, 2014 on bild.de.
History
Beginnings and the Kalkum feud
According to the Rhyming chronicle created by Eberhard von Gandersheim from 1216 to 1218, a royal court existed in Kalkhem as early as 892, which the later Kaiser Arnolf of Carinthia gave to Gandersheim Abbey in that year: "Noch gaf de könnich to Gandersem einen riken hof, de is geheten Kalkhem; unde sin bi deme Rine belegen." However, Kalkum was not first mentioned in a document as Calechheim until 947, when Emperor Otto the Great confirmed this donation. However, the Gandersheim estate was not a predecessor of the present-day castle, but probably the present-day Niederhof in the part of Kalkum called Unterdorf. In 1176, the lords of Kalkum were first mentioned in a document with the lower nobleman Willelmus de Calecheim, a ministerial of the Merbey of Meer. They were the owners of a knight's seat in Kalkum. Members of the family later also called themselves von Calichem, Caylchem, Calgheim and von Calcum. The knights' seat was a first fixed house in the part of Kalkum called Oberdorf, which has not yet been dated or located more precisely, but was probably on the site of today's castle. From the 14th century onwards, the lords of Kalkum were in the service of the Berg counts and later dukes. In 1360, Peter von Kalkum held the office of Berg court master and was ducal Landdrost from 1361 to 1383.
By the 14th century, the Kalkum knight's seat had developed into a castle-like complex, probably consisting of a manor house and an outer bailey separated from it by a moat. According to earlier tradition, this complex was besieged and destroyed by Cologne troops in 1405, as members of the family of the Lords of Kalkum were in feud with the city of Cologne from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 15th century, which went down in Rhenish history as the Kalkum Feud. However, contemporary chronicles of the associated warlike actions only mention the destruction of the house of Arnold von Kalkum (heren Arnols huyss) and not explicitly the castle in Kalkum. More recent research suggests that the house that burned down was not the Kalkum castle, but Haus Remberg, located south of Duisburg.Dietmar Ahlemann: Haus Remberg. In: Bürgerverein Duisburg-Huckingen e.V. (ed.), Heimatbuch (Volume III), Duisburg 2015, pp. 175-196.
Kalkum under the von Winkelhausen family
The lords of Kalkum rebuilt their burnt-down manor house after the end of the feud. A map from around 1600 shows it as an ensemble of three houses connected by corridor-like buildings, which were surrounded on all sides by a common moat. However, the estate did not remain in the possession of the lords of Kalkum for much longer, as the line of Kalkum died around the middle of the 15th century. Around the middle of the 15th century, the male line of the family based in Kalkum died out and the castle was inherited by the von Winkelhausen family, whose ancestral seat, the Haus Winkelhausen, was located a few kilometers north of Kalkum. It is still not clear exactly when this happened. There is documentary evidence that Grete von Kalkum gave her estates in parish Kalkum to Hermann von Winkelhausen in 1443. This could also have included the Kalkum house. There is evidence that the castle was owned by Winkelhausen in 1465, as in that year Herrmann von Winkelhausen designated Kalkum as a widow's residence for his wife Agnes on 27 October. In the 17th century, the estate was also used several times to provide for widowed members of the family. After inheriting the estate in the 15th century, the von Winkelhausen family moved their permanent residence to Kalkum. Around 1500, the owner was Johann von Winkelhausen. The estate passed from him to his son Ludger and finally to his nephew of the same name in 1556. This Ludger von Winkelhausen was jülich-Berg councillor, equerry and marshal as well as bailiff of Hückeswagen, Bornefeld and Mettmann. In 1553, his family was also elevated to the baronial rank by privilege of Emperor Ferdinand III.
Ludger had the old Gothic Wasserburg into a representative Baroque castle by 1663, partly using the old building fabric. The stately residence at the south-west corner of the complex, known as the Oberhaus was not only given large rectangular windows and a new roof, but a square corner tower with a curved hood and lantern was also added to its two wings, which abutted at right angles. However, the main focus of the work was on enlarging the outer bailey buildings. Ludger had the old farm buildings completely demolished and then had a new four-winged outer bailey built, which was more than twice as large as its predecessor. Together with the manor house, the castle now had the quadrangular ground plan it still has today and was surrounded by a newly dug moat. A drawing by the Walloon Renier Roidkin from around 1720/1730 shows Kalkum Castle after the conversion and extension work. The building stock at that time included a castle chapel to the north of the two-storey manor house. A ridge turret depicted on the Roidkin drawing points to this building, which no longer exists. In addition, a stone foundation found in the corresponding place suggests an altar. At the north-east corner of the outer bailey stood a polygonal corner tower with a double-curved Baroque dome, which is no longer preserved today. A wooden bridge led over the southern moat to a square tower with a gate.
After the death of Ludger von Winkelhausen in 1679, his son Philipp Wilhelm took over the inheritance. During his time as lord of the castle, Kalkum was almost constantly involved in warfare due to its proximity to the heavily fortified Kaiserswerth was almost constantly involved in warfare. In the course of the Palatinate and the subsequent Spanish War of Succession, the complex was severely damaged. In 1688, soldiers of the Sun King Louis XIV occupied Kaiserswerth. The French Minister of War Louvois demanded that Philipp Wilhelm defortify his property by filling in the castle moat and taking down all the defensive walls. When these demands were not immediately met, French troops occupied the complex and devastated it. Their stay at Kalkum did not last long, however, as the German imperial princes had joined forces to expel the French from the Lower Rhine. The French soldiers eventually had to vacate the castle and flee from the approaching allied troops from Brandenburg, Münster and Holland, some of whom then took up quarters in the castle themselves. The change of occupation was accompanied by constant bombardment of the castle, which caused considerable damage to the walls and roofs. The quartering of the soldiers - Lieutenant Colonel von Kalkstein from the Brandenburg regiment alone came with 40 horses and 200 foot soldiers - also affected the fabric of the building. Despite the uncertainties, the von Winkelhausen family continued to live at Kalkum Castle during this time. Kalkum was also involved in the fighting during the War of the Spanish Succession, during which Kaiserswerth was again taken by French troops at the end of November 1701 and besieged and recaptured in 1702 by allied imperial troops from Holland and Prussia under the leadership of Elector Johann Wilhelm II. Soldiers again took up quarters in the castle. This time the buildings were not damaged by military action, but gardens, fields and meadows were devastated by entrenchments and could no longer be cultivated. In addition, the occupying forces had taken away or destroyed numerous pieces of equipment and furniture from the castle.
Transfer to the von Hatzfeldt family and renewed quartering